Home Was a Dream (Where the Light Enters)
by ICanStopAnytime
Summary: Daryl and Merle Dixon plan to rob the quarry camp. It should be easy. These fools have no common sense. But Daryl's conscience is pricked by a little girl and her mother. Canon through 1.3, then AU. The ensemble cast grows throughout this epic story.
1. Casing the Camp

_**"Home was a dream, one that I'd never seen, until you came along."** \- Jason Isbell_

 _ **"The wound is the place where the light enters you."** \- Rumi_

[*]

 **A/N:** This is a sequel to "Things Fall Apart." It's not necessary to have read that to understand this, but it may help with some background. I am in the process of editing this story after a few changes and chapter combinations, so the reviews you see probably won't match up with the chapter numbering, and you may see the chapter number "skip." Rest assured the story is all there, but the site doesn't automatically update chapter numbers when you delete or insert chapters.

[*]

"Mhmm, mhmmm, mhmmm!" Merle murmured. "What a lovely pair of tits on that blondie!"

Daryl and Merle were lying stomach down at the edge of the woods on an overlook across from the quarry. There appeared to be a sizable camp established there. The Dixon brothers were trying to stay masked by the foliage, because there was some old man sitting on top of his RV, keeping watch.

"Let me see," Daryl insisted. He motioned for the binoculars, but Merle didn't give them up.

"Oh, hello! Blondie's got a sister!" Merle cried. "I'll leave the little sister to you, little brother. Though I ain't sure she's legal." He looked in silence a moment longer and said, "Nah. On second look, she's gotta be twenty somethin'."

Merle handed the binoculars to Daryl, who scanned over the camp. "Ain't like they gonna want _us_ ," Daryl said. "Plenty of men in that camp."

"Oh, brother, c'mon. You know every woman wants a piece of the Merle."

Daryl snorted. "Don't think their daddy is gonna take kindly to you comin' on to 'em."

"They got a daddy?"

"Yeah. The geezer with the stupid hat. They just went inside his RV. Reckon he's daddy."

Merle grabbed the binoculars back. "That _is_ a decent RV. Bet that would get us to Kentucky in style."

"Hell we want to go to Kentucky for?" Daryl asked.

"Bourbon trail, brother! Always wanted to do it. Now seems like the time. Doubt people have looted all those distilleries. They're spread all over the place."

"Hmmm," Daryl murmured. It didn't sound like a bad idea. He'd really liked that Blanton's Merle had pilfered yesterday. And it was something to do. An adventure. Something other than sitting around in a cabin waiting for the world to finish ending.

"Have to steal it when they's not in it," Merle reasoned.

"We's gonna steal the RV?" Daryl asked.

"Well I doubt the old man's gonna sell it to us. And what we got to buy it with? Might as well rob the whole damn camp while we's at it."

"I don't know, Merle."

"Christ, Daryl. Where'd this sensitive conscience come from all the sudden? The world's gone to shit, and yer just now findin' Jesus?"

Daryl toyed with a twig on the ground where they lay. "Dunno. I just ain't never robbed no one before."

"We robbed Darlene."

The twig snapped between Daryl's fingers. He didn't like to be reminded that he'd gone along with that.

"And, hell, we used to rob Uncle Sam." Merle reached over and slapped his shoulder.

"That don't count," Daryl said. In the late 90s, they'd applied for food stamps, without reporting their full incomes, seeing as they were paid in cash. And when they got the food stamps, they used them to buy soda at the KMart. Then they'd sold the soda at half the price for cash to Johnny Lee Miller to mark up and resell in his convenience store. "That ain't the same as what yer suggestin' we do here."

"Jesus, Daryl," Merle said. "Is this 'cause Nana made you go to that one Vacation Bible School when you was five?"

"Just don't seem right, robbin' the whole damn camp. They got women and children, man!"

Merle moved the binoculars back and forth. "Yeah, you're right. They do have kids. Tell you what. We'll just take the RV and the cigarettes and _some_ of the ammo. Extra rifle maybe. Leave the rest. They got plenty of shit. They'll manage."

"A'ight," Daryl agreed reluctantly. "But no one gets hurt. We wait 'til they's sleepin' or somethin'."

"We wait longer than that. Got to get the lay of the land. Know what I'm sayin'?" Merle pretended to hump the ground.

"How we even gonna get 'em to take us in?" Daryl asked.

"Seems like they's takin' in anyone," Merle reasoned. He peered through the binoculars again. "Hell, they even got a chink."

Daryl took the binoculars and saw the Asian kid in the baseball cap. "Try not to call 'em a chink when we roll in." He surveyed the camp for a while longer. "If we's gonna steal some shit, we got to do it when _that_ guy's not 'round." He handed the binoculars to his brother. "The one with the black hair."

"Yeah," Merle agreed. "He walks like a cop. Holds himself like one, too." Merle chuckled. "Awww…but he's got an Achilles's heel."

"Yeah what's that?"

Merle licked his lips. "Right now, he's sneakin' off into them woods with some honey."

"You can see all the way into them woods over there? Does that mean the geezer can see us?"

"Nah, we's better masked," Merle said. "And that geezer ain't got eyes in all directions. They got shit security in this camp. Herd of geeks could burst in the back right now, overrun the camp, they wouldn't even notice 'til they's bein' eaten alive. Bunch of dumb asses down there." He fell silent and watched intently through the binoculars.

"What's going on?" Daryl asked.

"They's fuckin'. Why? Ya want a peep? Cain't see much of her, unfortunately. Mostly his ass, but I bet you'd like that."

"Jesus, Merle." Daryl took the binoculars. "Stop bein' a perv." He scoured the camp again.

"Yer checkin' out his ass, ain't ya?"

"I'm countin' the people in the goddamn camp! There's 'bout thirty, 'cludin women and children. And there's two other big guys 'sides the cop."

The binoculars smacked Daryl's nose as Merle yanked them away to take a gander at the camp. "The nigger and the spic, ya mean?"

"Try not to call 'em that when we roll into camp."

"There's another one. A big white guy with an old lady for a wife." Merle handed over the binoculars.

"She ain't old. She just has gray hair. That girl of hers can't be more'n twelve." Daryl inched a little closer to the edge of the and narrowed his eyes. The girl looked familiar somehow. "Well shit!"

"What?"

"Nothin'," Daryl muttered. It was just that the girl looked an awful lot like the girl in the photos he'd found in the cabin.

[*]

Ed was in a rage. He insisted Carol had been laughing at him behind his back this morning, when she'd been cleaning the grill with Jacqui. Really, she'd only been laughing at some affectionate joke Jacqui had made about T-Dog. That shared moment of comradery had felt good. Carol couldn't remember the last time she'd had girlfriends. When she was twenty-one, maybe, and she still worked as a secretary, and gossiped with the other office girls, before Ed insisted she quit her job.

"It had nothing to do with you, Ed, I swear." She threw her eyes toward Sophia, to remind him that she was right there. Carol nodded in the distance, to indicate she should go, but Sophia shook her head slightly.

"Giggling like goddamn school girls!" Ed roared. He seized Carol by the wrist. She shrank beneath his grip. He hadn't hit her since they'd settled in this camp. She'd hoped maybe that was over, that all these too-near neighbors had deterred him. But there was no pair of eyes on them now. Everyone in the camp was busy. "Slap that laughter out of you!"

The back of Ed's hand met with Carol's face, and her head snapped back. Sophia gasped. Carol braced herself for the second blow, but it didn't come. Ed glanced around, as though to make sure he hadn't been seen. "That'll learn you," he muttered. "Now finish hanging my damn laundry!" He disappeared inside their tent.

Carol touched her cheek lightly with one hand. "Go find Carl and play, sweetie," she told Sophia, feeling ashamed that she'd allowed Sophia to witness that.

Sophia ran off, and Carol went back to work.

[*]

"That guy ain't gonna be no problem for us," Daryl said through clenched teeth as he watched Carol return to hanging the laundry. "He don't know how to pick on someone his own size."

Daryl and Merle crawled back into the trees, where they stood up and brushed off the debris that clung to their shirts. They started heading down the wooded hill to the alcove where they'd hidden the motorcycle. Daryl stopped, sniffed the air, disturbed the ground with his foot, and then looked around.

Merle slowed to a stop a few feet ahead of him and turned back. "What?"

"We cain't just waltz in there and expect 'em to welcome us."

"Well, I'll turn on the famous Dixon charm."

Daryl unshouldered his crossbow and checked to make sure it was properly loaded. "I'm thinkin' maybe we should bring a peace offerin'."

"Yeah? Like what?"

Daryl put his left foot forward a few inches and nodded down to the toe of his boot. Merle followed his gaze to the spot where the hoof of a deer had pressed into the slightly damp earth.

Merle grinned. "Oh yeah, little brother. They probably haven't eaten real meat in days."

Daryl smiled and began following the trail. Merle, falling in step beside him, said, "Bet those two sisters are gonna be grateful for a little venison steak, huh?" He winked and laughed. "Looks like the Dixon brothers are gettin' laid tonight!"

"Merle, we ain't tradin' venison for pussy. That's a camp of families over there. Not a brothel."

"I know that, little brother. We gonna give the deer to 'em as a gift. Pure and free and clear! A peace offerin'. I get it. But I wouldn't be a'tall surprised if those ladies wanted to give us a little _piece_ offerin' right back."

Daryl shook his head and returned his attention to the trail.

 **[*]**

They'd been tracking the deer for three hours when Merle suggested they give up and snag a few squirrels instead.

"Cain't give up yet," Daryl said. "I can smell it now."

Merle chuckled dryly. "The student has become the master. Is that what you think?"

That _was_ what Daryl thought. Merle may have been the first one to teach him to hunt, but he'd been a better hunter than his big brother for at least ten years. Daryl didn't dare say that, though. Instead, he said, "Give me one more hour."

"Got to hit this camp before chow time, baby brother."

Daryl ignored him and walked on, his intense, blue eyes sweeping the ground for sign.

[*]

It took two arrows and a half mile chase to bring the deer down. The brothers field dressed it and then tied its legs together to make it easier to carry. Daryl slung the deer over his shoulders, around his neck, and bore its heavy weight until they reached the spot where Merle's bike was hidden.

Merle uncovered his chopper, and they draped the deer over the seat. While Merle rolled the bike toward the camp, with his rifle on one shoulder, Daryl carried the backpack and his crossbow.

"Let me do the talkin'," Merle insisted. "You're liable to scare 'em."

"Me?" Daryl asked. "Yer face ain't exactly a welcome mat neither."

"I got me a way with words, though."

The front tire of Merle's bike crunched over twigs as the Dixon brothers emerged from the forest into the clearing where the tents were scattered. They were met by four rifles in the hands of four men – the one they had assumed was a cop, the bald black guy, the geezer, and the large Hispanic.

"Well ain't this a friendly greetin'!" Merle kicked the stand down on his motorcycle and leaned it on its side. "And all we got to offer is the best damn dinner any of y'all have had in days!"

Daryl took the deer off the bike and threw it on the ground at the men's feet. They all took one step back.

The black-haired man nodded at the others, who put up their guns against their shoulders, though he kept his own leveled.

"I'm Merle Dixon, and this here's my brother Daryl." Merle looked at the black-haired man. "You the big man on campus?"

The man introduced himself: "Shane Walsh."

"Where did y'all come from?" Shane asked.

"We come from the hills, like saviors descendin' from on high." Merle gestured to the deer. "Bearin' gifts to the commoners."

Daryl wasn't sure Merle's little speech was the best approach. "Look," he said to the men. "Just want to camp with y'all. We can pull our own weight. Hunt."

"Give us a moment." Shane turned with bowed head. The men huddled like football players, whispering among themselves. When they broke, Shane said, "You can stay with us, but for the first couple of days, you'll need to hand over your weapons, until we're sure you're trustworthy."

"Fuck that," Merle said. "C'mon, little brother."

Daryl squatted, plucked up the deer, and slung it over his shoulders. Merle kicked up the stand of his bike, turned it around, and began rolling it away. They'd walked only a few steps when Shane called, "Hold up!" Merle gave Daryl a knowing, self-satisfied look, and the Dixon brothers turned.

"You're new to us," Shane said. "Surely you can understand our concern about the weapons."

"In this world," Merle replied, "the dead walk and eat the livin'. Surely _you_ can understand _our_ concern 'bout the weapons."

"'Sides, how in the hell ya expect us to hunt without 'em?" Daryl asked.

The men huddled again. It was the black man, who introduced himself as T-Dog, who delivered the small council's verdict. "You can stay with us. You can keep your rifle and crossbow."

Merle didn't mention he also had a handgun as he leaned his bike on its stand once again. "Well ain't that mighty white of you," he said.

T-Dog narrowed his eyes and his nostrils flared.

"How'd ya get a name like T-Dog anyhow?" Merle asked. "You give that name to yourself? Reckon you did. A ni – " Daryl shot Merle a warning look, and he shifted gears: "…A nifty black man such as yourself must have some interestin' ideas for names."

"It's a nickname. Real name's Theodore."

"Theodore," Merle repeated with a disdainful chuckle. "Hell, I'd go by T-Dog, too."

Shane introduced the other two armed men as Morales and Dale and then said, "Don't be offended if we keep a close eye on your for a while. Until you get settled in with us."

Despite the fact that he was intending to steal some of their things, Daryl found himself resenting their assumption that he was untrustworthy. Their distrust rankled him, but he was also irritated with himself for being irritated. He cursed himself with the thought that he was a hypocrite like his daddy, who had taken disability for a fake injury for ten years, all the while bitching about inner city welfare queens.

A woman approached curiously and cautiously and stopped just beside Dale.

"Hello, blondie!" Merle called, winking at her. "What's your name, darlin'?"

"Andrea," she said. "And don't call me blondie. Or darling."

"Sure thing, blondie."

Dale took a protective step in front of her and went back to holding his rifle in both hands, though he didn't point it. By now, half the camp had gathered around out of curiosity, and Shane began introducing him.

"This is Carol," he said, gesturing to the gray-haired woman. "Her husband Ed and their daughter Sophia."

Sophia peered around her mother. Daryl studied the freckled girl. She quickly turned her face and buried it in her mother's shirt. Sophia was definitely the girl in the photos in the cabin.

Next Daryl looked at Carol, who immediately cast her eyes to the ground. She was a mouse of a woman, and Daryl felt a sudden jolt of disdain for her, for letting that man do to her - and possibly to their daughter - whatever it was she let him do.

Daryl supposed it wasn't any of his business how a woman let her husband treat her. But if this Ed asshole was beating the little girl too, and Daryl ever _saw_ him do it, well, that man was going to get the thrashing of his life. He hadn't been able to defend himself against his own father at that age, but he could sure as hell defend this girl against hers. He narrowed his eyes at Ed, who returned his gaze with equal distaste.

Another woman emerged beside Andrea. "I'm Amy," she said. "Andrea's sister."

Merle flashed his smile at her. "Well what ya know," he said, "a couple of brothers and a couple of sisters."

Dale frowned sternly in Merle's direction, while Andrea rolled her eyes and Amy appeared nervous.

The Asian kid who was lingering nearby raised his hand and grinned dopishly. "I'm Glenn."

"Glenn?" Merle asked. "Strange name for a Chinaman."

"I'm Korean, actually."

When the rest of the camp was introduced, Shane said to Morales, "Why don't you show the Dixon brothers where they can camp? And get them that extra tent and the two sleeping bags. It doesn't look like they have any camping gear."

The brothers staked out their spot on the campground and dropped their gear in a pile. Morales brought them the tent and sleeping bags and then went on his way.

They looked at the tent that was rolled in a blue bag. "Pup tent," Merle muttered. "Reckon that barely sleeps two. Ya want to get that cozy?"

"No."

"Good. Neither do I. Tent's are for pussies anyhow, less it's rainin'." Merle looked at the sleeping bags. "Least they gave us grown-up ones."

Shane strolled over with his rifle held loosely in his right hand. "A couple of the women are going to prepare the deer. They don't know how to skin and cut it though. Will you help?"

"Andrea one of those women?" Merle asked.

"Andrea's busy washing the camp plates."

"Hmmm..." Merle mused. "Think I might go help with that. Daryl'll be happy to butcher that deer, won't ya, brother?"

It didn't seem he had much choice. "Sure," he said and followed Shane toward the camp fire pit.


	2. Small Town Folk

Shane walked him to the butcher's table, where Carol and another woman stood. "This is Jacqui," Shane said as he motioned to the black lady next to Carol. "She's going to help Carol to cook." Shane, apparently content Daryl wasn't a threat to the women, wandered off. Daryl thought that was a dumb ass thing to do. If he was in charge of a camp, he wouldn't leave a couple of unarmed women alone with a man he'd just met. Especially not one who looked like him.

Jacqui looked a little squeamish as Daryl skinned the deer with his hunting knife, and she walked away to light the kindling in a large stone-lined pit, which also had a metal grill on a stand. Out of the corner of his eye, Daryl watched Carol as he peeled off the deer's pelt. He expected her to be even more squeamish than Jacqui, given how mouse-like she was around her husband, but she didn't seem bothered. "You grow up on a farm or somethin'?" he asked her.

"No," she answered, still avoiding direct eye contact with him. "My father was the town butcher."

" _The_ town butcher? Must've been a small town." He dropped the deer's hide to the ground. He had no use for it. He had no wall to hang it on.

"About three thousand people," Carol answered.

"What's yer husband do for a livin'?" Daryl wasn't usually this talkative, but he was trying to get an idea of how strong or competent Ed might be, in case he ever needed to fight the man. Maybe part of him already _wanted_ to fight him. He looked beyond the fire pit to where Sophia was playing with a brown-haired boy who looked to be about her age.

"Before all this started, he was the manager of a liquor store."

That didn't sound too intimidating.

"I had a job, too, back then, as a secretary. I quit soon after we got married." She looked down at the ground when she said that, like maybe she was ashamed of quitting.

Daryl didn't understand why women put up with abuse, the way his mother had. He'd had an excuse. He'd been a defenseless kid who hadn't known things could be any different. And as soon as he was as big as his father, he'd hit back. But a woman was an _adult._ She could just leave, couldn't she?

"You're not from the city either," Carol surmised.

"That obvious?" Daryl asked.

She smiled. It came as a surprise, that small, unexpected twist of her lips, which lightened her otherwise weary face. He could see how she might have once been very pretty. She wasn't unattractive now, either, but she was worn down. "Takes a small towner to know a small towner," she said.

"Ain't even from a small town. Had to come down off the mountain when I wanted to _go_ to the small town. Had seven neighbors in three miles." Daryl hacked away at the deer.

Carol took a step back because blood was spattering as he freed the deer of its extremities. She winced.

"What, was yer daddy better at this?" he asked.

" _Neater_ anyway. More efficient."

"Want at it?" He extended her the bloody knife.

She shook her head. "I never cut up the animals. I just watched him do it."

Daryl, irritated by her criticism of his skill, went back to work. He'd expected Carol to walk away to the fire pit like Jacqui by now, but she was still standing there, watching him.

"I'm glad you and your brother can hunt," she said. "We've started to reach the end of our supplies. Ed was a prepper, but our family is finally out of the MREs."

Daryl glanced over her shoulder in the distance where Ed sat lazily in a lawn chair outside their personal campsite. At the moment, he was watching Amy walk by and looking straight at her ass with a lecherous grin. Amy was carrying kindling. Dale and T-Dog were keeping watch. Morales was cutting wood. Jim, the camp mechanic, was working on the engine of a Jeep while Glenn watched and learned. Shane was checking in on people. Andrea was scrubbing dishes in a trough of water. But that asshole Ed was just sitting on his ass, watching it all happen. "Don't seem like much of a survivalist. Seems like he lets other people do the work."

"Well, preparation is work," Carol said half-heatedly. "We had food for the first few weeks because of the MREs. I shouldn't have complained about the money he spent on them last year."

Daryl's eye's swept quickly over her face before returning to the deer. He wondered if she'd gotten a black eye for her complaining. There were no visible bruises on her at the moment, not even where he'd seen Ed slap her this morning as he watched the camp from the hills. Her wrists were red, though, probably from much grabbing. "How come ya ain't carryin' a gun?" he asked.

"Ed doesn't like me to. He protects me."

"Hmmm."

"He have a lot of guns and ammo?" Daryl asked. "Yer husband?" He hoped he wasn't being too obvious, but if he and Merle were going to rob this place, they ought to know who had what.

"Just the one hand gun."

Not much of a prepper, Daryl thought.

"He lost his shot gun when we were fleeing," Carol continued. "I've never cooked venison. What do you suggest for spices?"

"Spices? Y'all got spices? Why?"

"I grabbed a bunch before we headed for Atlanta. Thought we might need them."

Daryl snorted. "Most people was grabbin' guns and ammo and knives, and you's grabbin' _spices_?"

Her eyes darted down to the deer. He didn't know why he felt suddenly bad for his derision. It was a dumb ass thing for her to have done, after all. But his tone softened. "Do what ya want. I just grill or roast the damn thing, let the fire flavor it."

He looked over her shoulder again and noticed that Ed was watching them. He didn't seem pleased that they were talking. "Better get them spices," Daryl said.

Carol nodded slightly and excused herself. Daryl finished his work, cleaned his knife of blood, and slid it back on his belt. "Deer's ready to cook," he told Jacqui, who had the fire going now. "Just put a spit through it."

He wandered off to find Merle. His brother wasn't hanging around and helping Andrea at the water trough. She must have told him to fuck off. As he passed Ed's lawn chair, Daryl saw Carol's outline inside the tent as she rummaged through a suitcase for the spices.

Ed rose and lumbered after him. "Hey!"

Daryl kept walking. He was several feet away from the tent when Ed cried, "Hey!" again. "You! Stop!"

Daryl turned but said nothing. Ed got right up in his face. It wasn't comfortable, because the man was four inches taller than Daryl, and he had to look up a little to meet Ed's gaze. But meet it he did, and he returned it just as hard.

"What were you talking to my wife about?"

"Cookin' deer," Daryl said.

"I better not catch you coming on to her."

"Hell would I?"

Ed narrowed his eyes. "Are you _insulting_ my wife now? You know, a hell of a lot of men looked at her when she was younger." He stabbed a thumb against his own chest. "But I was the one who caught her."

"Ain't tryin' to catch no one. Just tryin' to cook a damn deer."

"I thought making her cut her hair and stop dying it, stop wearing those damn dresses would keep the unwashed animals off her." He looked Daryl up and down with distaste. "Guess I was wrong."

Daryl gritted his teeth.

"Don't think I don't saw the way you looked at her," Ed said.

"I got no fuckin' idea what yer talkin' 'bout, man." Daryl unraveled his clenched fist, turned, and walked away.

Ed didn't follow.

 **[*]**

The venison tasted better than Daryl expected. He wondered what Carol had done to it. The whole camp ate around the fire pit, except for two men who were keeping watch. Daryl didn't think much of the camp's security, given how easily he and Merle had spied on the camp and then snuck up on it.

"Y'all get many geeks up here?" Merle asked. Maybe he was thinking about the pathetic security, too.

T-Dog licked his fingers. "Geeks?"

"The undead," Merle clarified. "We call 'em geeks on account of Earl. Y'all don't know Earl, but he knew the geeks."

"Hmmm…" Glenn mused. "Geeks. I kind of like that. I think I'm going to use that. People used to call _me_ a geek. It would be nice to call someone _else_ a geek for a change."

"Not that kind of geek," Merle said. "Genetically Engineered Eating Creatures."

"Creatures starts with a C," Glenn said.

"Try tellin' that to Earl," Merle replied. "Earl said the military engineered 'em."

"That's ridiculous," Andrea said. She was sitting on a log next to her sister and Dale, across the fire from the Dixon brothers. "It was spread through that super flu. Everyone who had that turned when they died."

Merle draped an arm over his knee. "And how come ain't none of us ever got that flu?"

Andrea shrugged. "Not everyone catches every disease. Maybe we're immune."

"But we ain't immune if the geeks bite us," Merle said.

"We call them walkers," Andrea replied.

"Why?" Merle asked her.

"Because they're still walking around."

"So are we, sugar."

" _Don't_ call me sugar." Andrea's tone was cold and surprisingly assertive for a woman who didn't appear to be armed. Merle raised an eyebrow. Daryl couldn't tell if he was pissed off or turned on.

Shane finally answered Merle's original question: "We don't get any this high up. That's why we settled here. They're mostly in the city and on the roads. Some of us will have to make a run for supplies soon, but, otherwise, we'll stay up here."

"How did y'all find your way here?" asked Jim. "Were you headed for the camps in Atlanta?"

"Hell no," Merle answered. "Dixon brothers don't need to suck on the tit of the government. We feed ourselves."

One of the boys, whose name was Carl, snorted at his use of the word tit, and his mother Lori shot him a stern look.

"Then where were you headed?" Morales asked.

"Nowhere in particular," Merle answered.

"You run into a lot of trouble out there?" Dale asked.

Merle had a lot to stories to tell, most of them untrue, about what they'd been up to before they arrived. A few of the others told their own stories of escape and becoming a part of the camp.

"None of us really know what's going on," Andrea said. "You go your whole life never seeing anything out of the ordinary, and then suddenly..." She shook her head.

"I seen things out the ordinary," Daryl said. A dozen pairs of curious eyes settled on him. Perhaps they were surprised to hear him speak at all. He wished he hadn't said anything.

"Like what?" Amy asked.

"Saw a chupacabra once." He told his story about the time he'd gone squirrel hunting and heard a strange growling in the woods. He'd seen the eyes first, glowing.

"They glow red?" T-Dog asked with an amused, disbelieving smile.

"Nah," Daryl said, annoyed by his light sneer. "They's an unholy blue."

T-Dog chuckled.

"What's so goddamn funny?" Daryl asked.

"Daryl, man," Merle told him, "no one has _ever_ believed that dumb ass story. Ya probably just saw a coyote."

"Weren't no coyote."

There were a few snickers around the campfire, and Daryl ate sullenly for the rest of the meal. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that Carol gave Sophia some of her venison, and then her husband took some of hers without asking. If he had a wife and daughter, Daryl though, he wouldn't eat jack shit until they were fed. Not that anyone would want to marry or reproduce with him. Of course, that Ed asshole had managed. You never knew what a woman might put up with.

"This is delicious," Andrea said, "thank you, Carol, for cooking it."

"I just spiced it up a bit," Carol said quietly. "Thank the hunters."

When she said that, Ed jerked his eyes toward her and gave her a cutting glare, which caused her to look down and rub her hand against her knee nervously. Then Ed looked suspiciously at Daryl.

Carl, who was sitting on a large rock next to his mother, moved forward a little, to the stone's very edge, so he could speak across the fire to the Dixon brothers. "Can you teach me to hunt?"

Lori put a protective arm around him. "I don't think that's such a good idea."

"Why not?" Carl asked. "If we're going to be camping all the time, I should probably learn."

"Boy's right," Merle said. "Can't bubble wrap him no more, lady."

"Excuse me?" Lori asked. "I'd thank you not to tell me how to raise my own son."

"Well, well, well," Merle said. "Don't stick your nose so high up in the air you drown in a rainstorm."

Andrea chuckled and then pretended to cough to cover the sound.

"I do thank you both for the deer." Lori stood and brushed off her jeans. "But Carl is _not_ going hunting with you." She took Carl by the hand and tugged him back toward one of the tents, leaving their camp plates on the rock.

"How old's your boy?" Merle asked Shane when they were gone.

"Oh, he's not mine," Shane answered. "I'm just…I'm a friend of the family's."

"Mhmhmmm..." Merle mused, drawing his eyes up and down Shane, shaking his head, and then popping his last bit of venison in his mouth.

Ed handed his empty plate to Carol without so much as looking at her. Obediently, she took it and rose. "C'mon, Sophia," she said to her little girl. "Come help me with the dishes."

"Stay here with me," Ed commanded his daughter.

"I need her help," Carol insisted and handed Sophia her and Ed's plates. From Ed's silent glower, Daryl surmised this was the one area in which he could not break his wife. Carol was protecting the girl from him. Daryl's own mother had tried to do that, for a time, until she'd buried her objections in wine.

Carol and Sophia began walking around and collecting the metal camp plates from everyone. Carol paused beside Daryl with her hand out and her blue-green eyes flitted down to his plate. He wondered if, with eyes like that, she used to be a blonde when she was younger. Maybe Ed had refused to let her dye her hair so she would seem less attractive to other men, but Daryl thought those softly colored eyes were probably _more_ striking in contrast to the gray hair. Daryl handed her his plate.

Merle nodded to the fire. "Y'all might want to keep these flames burnin' lower. Ya got 'em a little high."

"So?" Ed asked gruffly from his now solitary spot on the log.

" _So_ ," Merle said, "That's how we knew y'all was here. We saw smoke risin' from the quarry. Now we's as sweet and gentle as doves, but that might not be the case with everyone who passes by on the highway below."

"That and fire might draw the geeks," Daryl added.

"I don't think those creatures know that fire means people," Dale replied.

"They know gunshots do," Merle said. "Wouldn't risk the fire if I was you, old man."

"It's not a bad idea, Dale," Andrea told him. "To keep the fires low. Better safe than sorry."

"Whoo wee!" Merle exclaimed. "You call yer daddy by his _first name_? Now that's damn disrespectful. Deserves a spankin'."

Dale's mouth dropped open slightly, as if he didn't even know how to respond to Merle's crassness. Andrea glared at Merle. "Dale's not our father. We ran into each other on the road."

"But he's been a big help to us," Amy said. "He rescued us when we were near Atlanta and those creatures were all over..."

Ed looked over at the trough where Carol and Sophia were washing the dishes. He stood without a word to anyone, meandered over, and said something to his wife. Daryl knew that look in his eyes. It was the look his own father got when he was telling Daryl that he would never amount to shit.

Andrea seemed to notice Ed's glowering look, too. She stood up. "I'm going to help with the dishes. Come on, Amy."

As Amy followed her big sister, she glanced back at the Dixon brothers and said, "If you've got clothes you need us to wash, laundry day is tomorrow."

Merle leaned over and whispered to Daryl, "Hear that little brother? Blondie junior wants to put her hands all over your skivvies."

"Shhh!" Daryl murmured and looked at Dale with caution. The man was watching them with narrowed and yet somehow bugged-out eyes. Daryl wasn't sure how they were supposed to sneak off with the man's RV if they were already putting him on edge.

People began to disperse from the campfire, leaving only a few men. Merle let out a large belch. He fished in his front pocket and pulled out one of the cigars they'd taken from the family in the cabin and lit it over the fire.

"Got anymore of those?" Morales asked.

"What you got to trade me for it?" Merle replied.

Morales fished in his front shirt pocket and pulled out a deck of cards. "I'll _play_ you for it."

"Five card stud?" Merle asked. He looked around at the men who were still lingering by the fire. "Who else is in?"

"No thank you," Dale said with a slight shake of his head. "I don't gamble." He rose and left.

"I'm out," Shane said. He rose and walked toward Lori and Carl's campsite.

"I could play a few hands," T-Dog offered. "I've got a bunch of candy I can bet with."

"What kind of candy?" Merle asked. "Better not be fuckin' circus peanuts."

"Skittles and Nerds."

"The fuck are Nerds?" Merle asked.

"They's those tiny colored pellets," Daryl said. "Looks like mouse shit, tastes like sugar."

"Awww...yeah. Two colors. One on each side?" Merle asked. "Love that shit."

"I'll play," Glenn told them. "I mean, if someone reminds me of the rules."

Merle snickered. "What ya got to bet with?"

"Batteries?"

"That'll do," Merle said.

"Daryl?" Merle followed Daryl's eyes, which had landed on Carol again. Ed was leaning close to her now, his mouth a snarl, as he said something low and likely mean in her ear. "You playin', little brother'? 'Cause I know you ain't doin' nothin' stupid tonight like startin' a fight. Gotta let people handle their own shit."

"What are you talking about?" Glenn asked.

Daryl snapped his attention back to the small circle of men. "Yeah, I'm in." He stretched out his left leg so he could fish a pack of cigarettes out of one of the lower pockets of his cargo pants. "Play y'all for smokes."

Morales began to shuffle the deck.


	3. A Confession

Daryl snapped out his sleeping bag on the ground. He and Merle had lost half their smokes to Glenn, even though the kid supposedly hadn't known how to play poker, and he didn't even smoke.

"Think Glenn was countin' cards," Merle said as he rolled out his bag. "You know how them Orientals are. Got them math brains. Got to have somethin' to make up for their tiny dicks."

"Jesus, Merle." Daryl sat down on his sleeping bag, tugged off his boots, and lay down on his back. He looked up at the stars as Merle settled down beside him. A foot of dirt divided their two sleeping bags.

"Don't mater. We're gonna steal all them smokes back. But we're gonna have to wait to take the RV. They gonna be watchin' us. Be awhile 'fore they let their guards down. But they will."

"Don't mind stayin' a bit." Daryl liked the idea of having something to do, and here he could hunt to feed people. That sense of purpose was already lifting the boredom that had hung so heavily on him in the cabin. What was more, Merle had nothing to get high on here. Maybe his brother would finally kick that beast, if they stayed long enough.

"Don't like these dumb ass people," Merle said. "'But I _do_ want to fuck that blondie 'fore we rob 'em and run."

"Don't think she wants to fuck you."

"Well, not _tonight,"_ Merle replied. _"_ But she'll get horny sooner or later."

"Dale's probably got them sisters in chastity belts."

"Don't forget, you get the little sister," Merle insisted. "I want the _experienced_ one, if you know what I mean."

"Amy's young, Merle. "

"Oh, c'mon, man, she's got to be at least twenty-two. That's how old the first girl you ever fucked was."

"Yeah, but I's sixteen!"

"Seventeen."

"Sixteen," Daryl insisted.

"Sixteen and 360 days," Merle reminded him with a smirk. "Oldest Dixon ever in the history of Dixons to pop his - "

"- Shut the hell up."

"You always did like older women," Merle said. "So ya want to take a shot at that old lady instead?"

"What old lady?" Daryl asked.

"Mrs. ' _thank the hunters_ ' Carol?"

"Ain't that much older 'en me. Hell, she's probably younger 'en you."

"Little Mrs. Cain't-make-eye-contact?" Merle said. "Y'all got that in common at least."

"Hell ya talkin' 'bout?"

"You can stare down a man," Merle said. "But you're _terrified_ of women."

"I ain't afraid of no woman."

Merle chuckled. Daryl rolled angrily on his side. Merle kept making fun of him, but he pretended to be asleep until his brother left him alone.

[*]

Daryl left the camp early in the morning to hunt. Merle didn't want to come with him. "Got to scope out things 'round here," he said, but when he said it, the only thing his eyes were scoping out was Andrea.

As he neared the edge of the open campsite and was about to enter the woods, Daryl spied Sophia lying on her stomach on the ground, touching something on a log. It took him a moment to realize it was a large toad, because the creature blended with the bark. Sophia ran one finger over its back as its throat bobbed. Daryl was surprised it didn't take off. Her finger froze as she sensed his presence. She looked up at him, and the toad leaped off the log and onto the ground. He aimed the bow and squinted to line up his sights.

"Don't!" Sophia shouted. The toad scurried off. Daryl lowered the crossbow. "He's my pet," she said.

"Could of been yer appetizer," Daryl told her.

She crawled backwards on her hands and knees, stood, looked at him guardedly, and then ran off toward Carol, who was walking around with a bag from tent to tent and collecting dirty clothes.

[*]

Carol sat on a flat rock by the fire pit as she scrubbed the grill clean from last night. Everyone was gossiping about the newcomers. The Dixon brothers made a lot of the women uneasy, but Carol was used to low-class types. They were no more or less likely to hurt her than her own husband was.

She looked up slightly now as the younger one strolled into camp now, a string of squirrels slung over the tanned skin of his smooth, muscular shoulder. Daryl swaggered like his big brother, but Carol could tell he wasn't as confident. He was always squinting his eyes, as if he didn't quite trust anyone, or shifting them around, as though eye contact might reveal too much. She could barely tell what color they were.

Daryl stopped nearby, tossed the squirrels down at her feet, and pointed to them. "Good for stew," he said. "Spice 'em up like ya did the deer."

She nodded slightly but didn't say anything. Ed had grumbled about the Dixons last night, called them _rednecks_ , as if he hadn't spent most of his adult life in a tiny southern town, as if he hadn't dropped out of high school and gone from job to job before settling at the liquor store and marrying her. But Ed had clearly taken a dislike to the Dixons, and if she seemed too friendly toward them, he'd get mad.

Daryl's eyes shifted around the camp, like he was looking for walkers or thieves. But he asked, "Where's Ed?"

"Probably taking a nap."

He looked over his shoulder toward their tent. "Where's yer girl?"

Carol wondered why he was asking about Sophia, but she wasn't alarmed by the question. Daryl didn't give her the pedophile vibe. She'd gotten that once, from a middle-aged neighbor who took an excessive interest in Sophia's hobbies. She'd told Sophia to steer clear of the man and had kept an eye on him, and, sure enough, a year later, he'd gone off to jail for molesting his nieces. Becoming a mother had given Carol a kind of sixth sense. She wished she'd had it when she was dating Ed. "She's around here somewhere, playing with Carl."

"Think that's such a good idea," Daryl asked, "not knowin' where she is?"

Carol stopped scrubbing. Who the hell was this man – this _kid_ , really - to judge her parenting skills? After looking around the campsite, she pointed with her scrub brush to the side of the RV, where Carl and Sophia were drawing something with sticks on the dusty ground. "They're _right there_. Everyone keeps an eye out for the kids here. If they didn't, she'd be at my side every second."

Carol scrubbed harder against the grill. She expected Daryl to go away, but he just stood there, watching her, not in a creepy way, but like he was thinking about something. Still, it made her uneasy. The brush stilled and she looked up at him. "Do you need something?"

Her question seemed to frighten him. His mouth opened and closed, and then he blurted, "Think I killed yer father-in-law."

Every nerve in Carol's body tensed. She dropped the scrub brush and leaped to her feet. Was that some kind of strange threat? She'd thought this man to be largely harmless. Now, she wasn't so sure. She looked at the tent where Ed was napping, to judge how far away help was, and then thought how strange it was that she should be turning to her husband for _help_. Daryl Dixon had never raised a hand to her, but she was seeking protection from a man who had.

"Nah! No," Daryl said, taking a step closer. "Don't mean I _murdered_ him. He'd turned. Became a geek. We found his cabin. Holed up there. _Had_ to kill 'em. The geek version of 'em, I mean."

Carol's eyes flitted left and right. "I don't know what you expect to gain by making up a story like that."

"Ain't no story."

She took a step back. "You don't even _know_ me. How could you know my father-in-law? Or know _that_ he was my father-in-law? _I've_ only met him once."

"The cabin we stayed in...there's photos. Lots of 'em. Photos of yer girl." He looked nervous, as if he was terrified she wouldn't believe him. "And there was a letter in the typewriter he was writin' to her. Yer little girl called her grandpa. I answered. Heard Ed yelln' in the background. Said ya better control yer daughter, or yer gonna be sorry."

Carol's face whitened. He must be telling the truth. And if he was, that meant Sophia's grandfather was dead. "Don't tell her," she begged. "Don't tell Sophia he's dead. Please. She never met him, but she loved him. She doesn't need to know that. She can hope he's still alive out there."

"Weren't plannin' to tell her."

"Please don't tell Ed, either. He doesn't know about their letters and phone calls." If Ed found out she'd been keeping a secret from him…

"Ain't got no reason to talk to Ed 'bout nothin'."

Carol's lip quivered. "Thank you," she half whispered, and then she sat back down and began scrubbing the grill again. It was already clean by now, but still she was scrubbing it, fiercely. She could see Daryl's thick, brown boots against the barren earth. To her relief, the toe of one moved back, and then she saw their heels, and soon enough, he was walking away.

 **[*]**

The crossbow was light and natural on Daryl's shoulder. It was becoming like one of his own appendages. He dropped two large, already skinned rabbits in front of Jacqui's lawn chair where she sat. Disgusted, she lifted her feet.

"Where's Carol?" he asked.

"Washing clothes in the lake with Amy and Lori." Jacqui looked to her left and then to her right, like she was looking for the nearest man. Her eyes fell on T-Dog, who saw her look of concern and began to mosey over.

Daryl's nostril flared at the thought of her thinking he was somehow a danger to her. All he'd done was throw dinner at her feet. He pointed to the rabbits. "Y'all can season those up when Carol comes back."

He walked on before T-Dog could reach him. "Merle!" he hollered as he walked. "Where ya at? Hey, Merle!" He'd thought his brother was going to go hunting with him this morning, but he hadn't for the past two days. Merle kept choosing to stay in the camp instead. He said he needed to "get the lay of the land," but Daryl thought maybe he just wanted to hit on Andrea all morning.

Daryl walked past Sophia, who had drawn hopscotch in the dirt with a stick and was tossing a rock in one of the squares. Carl watched her as she hopped. "What a dumb game," the boy said, but then he picked up a rock of his own.

Daryl's eyes flitted over the girl as he instinctively searched her arms and face and lower legs for bruises, but he didn't see any. He didn't think Ed was taking his anger out on her. _Yet._ But Daryl's father hadn't started beating him right away either, not until Merle went away to juvie.

Sophia had finished hopping, and now she was looking at Daryl looking at her, and her eyes grew a little wide. Daryl immediately cast his to the ground and walked on.

Young Carl trailed after Daryl, saying, "Hey! Mr. Dixon, hey!"

Daryl stopped and peered back at him. No one had ever called him Mr. Dixon before. Mr. Dixon wasn't even his father. Mr. Dixon was his _grandfather_. "Hell ya want?"

Carl froze in place. He took a step back. "You go hunting?"

"Yeah."

"What did you get this time?" Carl's eyes twinkled with excitement. "A deer?"

"Nah. Just a couple rabbit."

"Will you take me next time?" he asked. "Hunting?"

"Hell no. Yer mama said no. 'Sides, you ever even shot a gun?"

"Once. My dad let me shoot his once. At the range. With his hands over mine. He's a cop. _Was_ a cop. He got shot in the line of duty. He died in the hospital." Carl swallowed and stared at the ground. His lip trembled. The kid looked like he was about to cry. Daryl didn't have time for any crying kids, and, besides, he saw Lori walking hurriedly in their direction, a look of concern knitting her brow. Daryl turned and walked on.

He found Merle by the RV, with his arm leaned against the open door, talking to Dale. Daryl's brother was pretending to be impressed with Dale's maintenance of the vehicle. "What features this thing have?" Merle asked. "You got one of them drop down bunks?" Dale invited him inside to give him a tour.

So Daryl just kept walking. Merle was obviously busy scoping things out. Hell, the dumb ass old man would probably show Merle where he kept the keys.

After passing the RV, Daryl neared to a stop by their private camp site. He dropped his crossbow on top of the sleeping bag. Several feet away, Andrea was untangling fishing line on another wooden table the camp had erected as a sort of workbench.

"Can you help me with this?" she called over to him.

Surprised by the request, he made his way over and took one of the poles off her hands. He kept his eyes on the work of his fingers and asked, "Who's gonna fish? Dale?"

"Me."

Daryl snorted.

"Why is that so funny?" Andrea asked.

He shrugged.

"Because I'm a woman?" she asked testily.

"Nah. Know plenty of women who can fish." Darlene could fish. She used to bug him when he was eight and she was twelve by finding him near the lake and dropping a line right next to his line to steal his fish. He had the better bait, but somehow they always ended up on Darlene's hook. His mother used to fish, too, with his father, when Daryl was really little, before Will Dixon dropped the "functional" part of his functional alcoholism and started staying out all night on the weekends. "Ya just don't strike me as a country girl."

"Well, I'll be sure to get a cowgirl hat, then."

Daryl didn't respond. He worked a knot loose, but it was one of several.

"I grew up in the Florida suburbs," Andrea said. "Went to college and law school. But when I was younger, I fished a lot with my dad. We had the ocean, after all, and a lake."

"Florida? Hell ya end up in Atlanta?"

"I was on a road trip with my little sister when everything ground to a halt. I was trying to make up for lost time with her. I think she always resented me for moving out and moving on. She felt like I deserted her."

That's how Daryl had felt when Merle joined the Army, though of course he didn't tell Andrea that.

"So I wanted to have a special time with her," Andrea continued. "But then the Outbreak happened. We broke down and were stranded on the highway near Atlanta, and there were just hordes of those things. Dale helped us escape in his RV." She worked silently on the fishing line for a while before saying, "Amy and I grew a lot closer on that road trip. My sister means a lot to me. I'd protect her with my life." She gave him a warning look. He wasn't sure what that was supposed to mean. Did she think he had designs on Amy? Did she think he was some kind of rapist? "Are you and your brother close?"

Daryl grunted and wrestled with the line, struggling to ease a string out of a knot.

"You two don't look all that much alike. Your builds are different, and what is he? Ten years older?"

"Eight," Daryl answered.

"Is he your half-brother?"

"Ya think my mama slept around?" he barked.

Andrea was unperturbed. "Maybe your dad."

"Yeah, well, he did," Daryl agreed. "But Merle and I both came out my mama's womb."

Andrea turned her fishing pole over on the table to come at the tangles from another angle. "See, that's just sexist. You were offended by the thought of your mom having an affair but couldn't care less that your dad slept around."

That wasn't true. He _had_ cared, those nights he'd listened to his mama cry herself to sleep. He'd cared even more when she started to drown her misery in wine. He'd cared the most of all when Will Dixon was out with one of his women, and his mama passed out with that cigarette in her mouth. His father didn't even know she was dead, or that the cabin had burned down, until the next morning. "Ain't none of my damn business who another man fucks."

"Well, your brother sure is trying to fuck me," she said.

Surprised by an f-bomb from the college educated suburbanite, Daryl blinked.

"But, you know, he's not exactly my type," Andrea said. "Not that I haven't defended people like him. I'm a Civil Rights lawyer. _Was._ I defended anyone who had their first amendment rights violated, from the New Black Panther Party to the KKK. So I know your brother's type."

"Merle ain't in the KKK," Daryl said. "Hell, does the KKK even exist anymore?"

"He sure has a lot of racist tattoos."

"Got 'em in juvie. Ya got to join a gang in those places. 'S how ya survive." Daryl bit his lip and cursed himself for mentioning Merle's record. These people were already suspicious of them. They didn't need to know Merle had a criminal record. Of course, they'd probably guessed. They all probably assumed Daryl had one, too.

"He sure does say a lot of racist things," Andrea said. "And he's got those swastikas on his motorcycle. Are you saying you _don't_ think he's racist?"

"Everyone's racist," Daryl said. "Just ain't many people who's honest 'bout it."

"So _you're_ a racist then?" she asked.

Daryl worked loose another knot. "If'n ya say so."

"Well, I didn't say so. _You_ said so."

"Ain't no more or less racist than you, lady."

Andrea laughed. "I'm not at all racist."

"Keep tellin' yerself that."

The lines were badly tangled now. They worked in silence, slowly freeing the strings. Andrea talked a little more, but Daryl concentrated on the work.

"You don't talk nearly as much as your brother," she said.

"Mhmmh."

"Not a man of many words, huh? Your brother has thousands of them."

Daryl roughly let go of the strings. "Then why don't ya do this with him if ya want to chat so damn much?" He strode off and snatched up his crossbow from the sleeping bag. "Merle!" he yelled in the general direction of the RV. "Goin' huntin' again. Back after sunset. Save me some grub."


	4. Naming Toads

Daryl leaned against a tree at the edge of the forest above the quarry and looked down at the lake below where Andrea had waded in and was casting a line. He scanned the shore line until his eyes fell on Carol. She was on her knees scrubbing clothes in the water. Amy was helping her, as was Morales's wife, whose name Daryl couldn't remember. It was like they'd stepped back two centuries in time, when men were men and women were women. He didn't hate it.

Daryl's skill set didn't exactly translate well to the modern world, and he liked the idea of women cooking for him and washing his clothes and looking after all the camp's children together. His mama hadn't done much of that, once she took to the bottle. Daryl had cooked for himself (which meant he didn't eat much that wasn't either bland or at heavily salted), washed his own clothes (which meant they were rarely clean), and raised himself (which meant he didn't know how to behave in civilized society). But here there were women doing the kinds of things he'd always wished his own mother would have done, and they were already starting to rely on him to put meat on the table in the evening.

If he stayed here, he'd have a role in this community, and it would matter to someone other than Merle whether he lived or died, because they would _need_ him to hunt. Something about this place just felt like...well...like it could possibly become a home. One day. Maybe.

Daryl shook off the silly thought. This was nothing but a stopping point, a momentary blip on the road to Kentucky, and from Kentucky...God knew where. Or, rather, Merle knew where, because Daryl was just going to follow his brother, like he'd always done. He thought of what Darlene had said to him, that he was like a puppy, always nipping on the heels of the big dog. That he was a boy and not a man.

Daryl gritted his teeth. He had hated Darlene's words, but even more, he hated that there might be truth in them. He drove the thought deep down into the pit of his stomach. Daryl turned and vanished into the forest, through the grasping branches of the trees, into a solitary world where there was no accusing voice, nobody looking for leadership, and no one to answer to but himself.

[*]

Carol had made a chunky rabbit stew, which she dished onto the camp plates with a slotted spoon so the broth wouldn't run off. Instead, it pooled and lapped the rims of the plates. Then she scooped the rest of the broth evenly into camp cuts so they could drink it as they ate. She sat down when everyone was served, everyone except Daryl, because he hadn't returned from his second trip into the forest. She set aside a plate and cup for him by the fire.

Daryl's big brother didn't seem the least bit worried that he wasn't back. Merle shoveled the food into his mouth and slurped up the broth nosily. Most everyone was done, and half had returned to their private campsites, by the time Daryl did stroll into camp and sit down on a log next to Merle. "Found deer tracks," he said. "Got too dark. Pick up the trail in the mornin'."

Carol rose and went and got him the plate and cup that she'd been holding for him. Ed's eyes followed her suspiciously as she handed it to Daryl, so when he muttered, "Thank ya," she ducked her eyes and scurried back to her seat beside her husband.

Ed leaned down and hissed, "Let him get his own damn plate next time."

She nodded. Daryl looked up at the sound of Ed's voice, and Carol immediately began to study the laced fingers in her lap. She could feel Daryl's eyes on her face and was relieved when she sensed him look away. Daryl ate hungrily and silently as the conversation rose and fell around them like waves.

Sophia handed Carol her plate and disappeared with Carl to catch fireflies under the supervision of Lori and Shane. Ed handed Carol his plate to wash, stood, and fished a cigarette out of his front pocket. As Carol rose, she struggled to steady the three empty plates in her hands, only to find Ed glaring down at her, motioning with his eyes to the cigarette in his hand. "Well hurry up and go on and light it for me, woman!"

Carol was trying to figure out how she was supposed to light his cigarette while juggling plates when Daryl's low voice drifted up from the log where he sat. "Her hands're full. Why don't you light it yer own damn self?"

Carol swallowed and closed her eyes slowly. The worst thing anyone could do was challenge Ed. It would just set him off.

Ed yanked the cigarette from his mouth and strode beyond the fire to where Daryl was sitting. "Why don't _you_ stand up and light it for me, _little man_?"

Merle let out a long, low whistle. "Ya just gonna take that sittin' down, little brother?" he asked.

Daryl flung his plate into the fire as he stood. The last bit of food slid off and sizzled and cracked in the flames. The metal of the camp plate sparked.

"Stop," Carol pleaded. "You two, please, just - "

Daryl lunged forward and tried to tackle Ed to the ground, but Carol's husband was too big. They grappled in place. The plates rattling in her hand, Carol stepped away from the wrestling men.

The fight was messy and full of grunts and posturing for position. Merle coached, "Get 'em, little brother! Watch your grip! He's a slippery fucker!" As Daryl struggled to gain control, Merle insisted, "Don't be dumb ass! Sweep his leg!" Daryl caught Ed behind the knee and the two men tumbled all the way to the ground.

Carol looked desperately around to find Sophia and hoped she wasn't watching this. She spied Shane strutting toward them.

"C'mon now!" Merle shouted. "Ya got to get him pinned! Good! Now punch the fucker!"

Daryl was pulling back his fist to strike when Shane ripped him off Ed and dragged him back a few feet. Daryl fought to get loose, but Shane's grip was strong. "Get the fuck off me!" Daryl shouted as he jerked loose.

Shane held his hand out in a stop-sign gesture. "Calm down, Daryl. Just take a deep breath and calm down. Whatever you two are fighting about, we don't have to handle it this way."

Daryl did take a few deep breaths. His eyes narrowed and darkened and flickered in the flames of the fire. He paced back and forth in front of Shane, bouncing a little on his feet, as though he wanted to fight more and was trying to fight the urge to fight.

Ed stood up from the ground, dusted himself off, and watched Daryl coolly.

"What the hell are you two fighting about?" Shane asked.

Daryl stopped pacing.

"Asshole disrespected my wife," Ed said.

"What?" Daryl shouted, flinging his arm up into the air as if he was going to step forward and punch, but then he stopped himself and paced again instead. "Yer the one who disrespects your wife, asshole!"

"I'm talking about the way you look at her!"

What was Ed talking about? Daryl didn't _look_ at her. No man looked at her anymore. They hadn't for years. Except for Ed, no man would want her. He'd told her that often enough.

"Don't think I'm an idiot," Ed said. "Don't think I haven't seen."

"Ed, now, come on," Shane said in a conciliatory voice. "I've never seen Daryl looking at Carol that way. He hardly ever looks at anyone. He isn't even around that often. Now let's all just calm down. Let's all settle down and go to our own campsites for the night."

Ed's adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed in anger. Carol retreated from the scene and began to anxiously wash the dishes, but she flitted her eyes upward to watch.

Shane was leveling his eyes in warning at Ed. "Now why don't you two shake hands and make up?"

Ed fumed.

"Shake," Shane commanded.

Ed was clearly afraid of Shane, because even though his eyes remained cold and angry, he held out his hand.

Daryl spit on his own palm and then gripped and shook Ed's outstretched hand.

Ed wiped his hand down the front of Daryl's shirt and then shoved him hard.

Daryl stumbled back a step and glowered. He began to stride toward Ed. Shane stood between them, his arms outstretched, a palm on each of their chests. "Enough! This is playground bullshit! Are you men or boys?"

Daryl's eyes flashed. "Ain't no goddamn _boy_! You fuckin' deal with 'em then." He turned and stomped off to his own campsite, plunked down on his sleeping bag, and began cleaning the tips of his arrows angrily with a rag.

Ed made his way back to their tent, lighting his cigarette as he did so. Carol watched him, her nerves winding into tense coils, knowing he would be extra angry tonight.

[*]

Merle meandered over and plopped down across from Daryl, heels on the ground, knees up, and arms resting on his knees.

"Ed pisses me off," Daryl muttered. "Reminds me of our pa."

"Look. I know sometimes you just need to blow off some steam." Merle turned his head slightly and watched Andrea retreating into the RV. "But I can think of an even better way to _blow_ off - "

"- Jesus, Merle. Give it up. She ain't interested."

"She just don't _know_ she's interested yet." He turned his eyes back to Daryl. "But Little Miss Gray Mouse ain't interested either." He sharply pointed a finger at Daryl. "And you ain't her savior, little brother. So enough of this shit. You just set us back two days on the robbery. Shane's gonna be watching you now."

"Maybe we should forget about the robbery."

"What?"

"Merle, man, what's the point? We got enough shit right here. These people all help each other out."

"You mean you think we should _stay_ here?"

"Why not?" Daryl asked. "Good a place as any."

"This ain't even as sweet as that cabin we were in, and you wanted to _leave_ that. Said you was bored!"

"Yeah, well, I ain't bored no more."

Merle shook his head, stretched out on his side on his sleeping bag, and propped himself up on an elbow. "Yeah, I can see that. After all, you're the entertainment."

"I didn't start that fight." Daryl lay down and crossed his arms behind his neck.

"Yeah," Merle agreed. "No way you could take that insult sittin' down. But you should've had him on the ground faster."

"He's big," Daryl insisted.

"He does what Shane says, though. You notice that?"

"Yeah, I noticed," Daryl admitted. "Don't know what Ed's so afraid of, though. Shane ain't any bigger 'en me. Ain't much any stronger."

"Ain't got shit to do with that. Shane's a _leader_. All these little sheep," Merle said, waving his hand around the camp, "rely on the sheep dog. They respond to his bark. Which means we got to wait to rob this place until the sheep dog is out in the pasture."

"So we ain't stayin'?" Daryl asked.

"Stayin' for what? Jesus, Daryl. You think these people _want_ you to stay? These ain't your friends. These people _detest_ you. They've only tolerated you these past few days because you been putting food on their table."

Daryl's jaw tightened. It was true, what Merle said. He wasn't their kind. He wasn't anyone's kind. He was better off with just Merle. And after that fight, they'd all be even happier to see him leave, except for the fact that he'd be leaving with half their shit.

Carol would be happiest of all to see him go. She'd clearly just wanted that fight to stop. Carol would be glad to be rid of him. She didn't want someone standing up for her, making things worse. She wanted to retreat into her shell just like his own mama had, pretend it wasn't happening, do whatever she could to avoid setting Ed off.

"Yeah, Merle," Daryl muttered as he settled on his side. "Let's rob the fuck out of these assholes."

[*]

Daryl left at sunrise the next morning to resume tracking that deer. The camp was barely stirring. Most everyone was still asleep.

As he prepared to enter the forest, he passed Carol, who was plucking down yesterday's washed clothes from a line that had been strung between two trees, folding them, and putting them in a wicker basket. He kept his eyes to the ground and assumed he would shuffle past without a word, but she surprised him by speaking. "Were you hurt?"

He stopped a couple of feet from her and, eyes on her cheap canvas shoes, said, "'Course not. Can handle myself in a fight."

"Listen, Daryl…" He looked up. It sounded strange, somehow, his first name falling familiarly from her lips when they ought to be strangers to each other. He could see the dark outline of a bruise on her cheekbone. "I know Ed can be a real jerk sometimes, but it's just better if I don't upset him. I don't need you making things worse by – "

"- Yeah. I get it. Ya don't want to rock the boat." His mind burned with the memory of his own mother telling him not to upset his father. "And fuck it if the boat's all full of holes and it's sinkin' and yer little girl's in it, scared shitless. Long as ya don't rock it, y'll be a'ight, right?"

A stunned expression spread across Carol's face and widened her eyes.

"Get yer spices ready," Daryl said. "Bringin' back another deer. Sure y'll want to fix it just right. So as ya don't upset Ed." He marched into the woods.

[*]

The hunter got closer to the deer, but it still eluded him. Daryl came back instead with three possum he'd found sleeping. He tied them by their tails to the sides of his belt and sauntered out of the woods and into camp, their carcasses swaying against his left leg.

A voice rose from behind a log. "How do you load that thing?" Sophia's eyes peered up over the bark and fell on his crossbow. She was lying stomach down on the ground.

"What ya doin' down there?" he asked. "Yer toad down there?"

"No. I think you scared Ethan away for good."

"Ethan? Hell kind of name is that for a toad?"

Sophia raised herself into a sitting position. She tugged at a weed clawing its way up from the ground. "It's what my mama was going to name my baby brother. If he hadn't died in her tummy."

Daryl had no idea what to say to that. He hoped that baby hadn't died because Ed had hit Carol while she was pregnant. How could she have stayed with him if he had? Hell, how could she stay with him if he hadn't?

Why had his own mother stayed with his father? She'd done it in part for Merle and Daryl, he supposed, because if she'd left Will Dixon, he'd have been a hundred times angrier toward his sons. He'd have found a way to steal them back from her, and then he'd have taken out all his anger at her on them.

Besides, where would his mama have gone? Her parents were dead when the beatings started. She had no brothers to help her stand up for her children. She had no job other than that morning shift at the diner, with its shitty tips. Maybe he'd been too hard on Carol. Maybe she had no one to turn to either. But here, in this community, she _ought_ to be able to find someone. Hell, Daryl would happily guard Sophia against Ed, if Carol decided to leave him, set up her own tent for just her and Sophia. At least, he'd be happy to do it if they were going to stay. But they weren't going to stay. Merle didn't want to stay. And Merle had convinced Daryl that he didn't want to stay either, but...well...maybe he did.

"Why?" Sophia asked. "What would _you_ have named him?"

Daryl was surprised the girl was talking to him, but he answered. "When I's a boy, named my first toad Big Lips."

Sophia giggled. "Your _first_ toad? I didn't think you had toads as pets. I thought you just ate them."

"Sometimes I ate 'em. And sometimes I named 'em and played with 'em. And sometimes I named 'em and played with 'em and then ate 'em."

Sophia grimaced.

"What? It's what ya do with your piglet when ya grow up on a farm. And then it's Easter dinner."

"I wouldn't name the piglet," Sophia insisted. "What were some of your other toads named?"

Why wasn't this girl afraid of him anymore? Maybe it wasn't _him_ she'd been afraid of in the first place. Maybe Merle was wrong. Maybe these people didn't detest him. Maybe Sophia, like Carol, was only afraid of Ed's _reaction_ to her talking to him. Daryl glanced back toward the campsite to make sure Ed was nowhere to be seen.

"My dad's down by the lake," Sophia said, as if she knew just what he was looking for. "What did you name them?"

"Named one Freckles on account of he had freckles. Kind of like yers. There was Leapy...he could jump real good. Milo. Ribbit. Mr. Toad. Swampy. Toady. Tiny. Hellfire."

"Hellfire?"

"Just thought it was cool."

"Why did you fight my daddy last night?" she asked.

"Just…had a disagreement is all. Was he mad at ya after?"

"He was mad at my mama."

"He…uh….he hit her?" Daryl wasn't sure why he asked it. He could already guess the answer, and it didn't do any good to make Sophia say it.

Daryl had made the mistake once of telling a teacher that his dad had whipped him with a jagged switch. The teacher had called CPS on his father, but CPS hadn't done anything about it except ask his daddy a few questions and file a report. Will Dixon had been sober and charming when they happened to stop by. He'd said Daryl had fallen into a briar patch when he'd been out playing in the woods after curfew, and he was upset because his father had taken away his bicycle for his misbehavior, so he was just making up angry stories. But later that night, he'd whipped Daryl hard for talking about it and told Daryl he better not see him being "chatty with adults" in the future.

Sophia stood. "I have to go help my mamma." She ran off.


	5. Carl's Role Model

Daryl made his way deeper into the camp. He skinned the possum on the dinner preparation table. Blood stained the wood. He was chopping off the second tail when he noticed Carl watching him. "Can I chop off the last tail?" the boy asked.

Daryl handed him the knife. The boy walked up to the table, but he wasn't tall enough to get a good angle, so Daryl boosted him up on his knee. "Ya got to come down on it hard and fast," Daryl said. "Don't raise the knife too high now. Start a little lower. Yeah. That's – "

There was a thud against the table as Carl brought the knife down. He didn't quite cut through the entire tail. "'S a'ight," Daryl encouraged him, "You can just saw the – "

"- What the hell are you doing with my son?"

Daryl immediately slid Carl off his knee and stepped back as Lori approached the table.

"Mr. Dixon was just showing me how to chop possum tails," Carl said.

Lori took the knife from the boy's hand. "You have to be careful with knives, Carl." She set it on the table. "Now run on and find Shane. He needs your help with something." Carl sulked off.

Lori waited until he was out of sight to turn and glare at Daryl. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Hell ya think _yer_ doing?" Daryl spat back. "Puttin' kid gloves on a boy in a world like this?"

"He _is_ a kid!"

"Cain't be much longer. Not with them geeks lurching all 'round the place."

"They aren't up here," Lori insisted.

" _Yet_ ," Daryl said. "And if it ain't them, it'll be somethin' else."

"Your chupcabara?" she asked sarcastically.

"We're surrounded by forest, dumb bitch! There's all sorts of wild animals!" Lori appeared shocked at his word choice. She wasn't used to being called a bitch, he could tell. Maybe she wasn't used to being called dumb either. And he wasn't used to being around women who didn't just shrug that language off. He felt like he should apologize, but he couldn't. He was too ticked off. "Boy's old enough to cut shit. He oughta have a knife on 'em all the damn time. Hell, ya oughta teach him to shoot and give him a gun!"

"He's not even 12 yet!"

"I's nine when I got my first rifle."

" _You're_ not my son's role model," Lori told him coolly. "Look, I appreciate that you've been hunting for us. It's been nice to have meat instead of nothing but cans of beans for protein. But please…just don't involve my son. He's too young." She shook her head and strutted off.

[*]

"This is greasy," Sophia said after taking a bite of the possum at the communal meal.

"Don't insult your mother's cookin'!" Ed barked.

Sophia melted against Carol's side and apologized.

"She wasn't," Carol half whispered as she placed a consoling hand on the small of Sophia's back.

"What did you say?" Ed asked her sharply.

Carol didn't re-assert herself.

"'S the possum," Daryl said. "Always greasy. Cain't do nothin' 'bout it. No matter how ya cook it."

"Best damn possum I ever ate though," Merle said. "Even better than those ones Earl's daddy used to breed."

"People breed possum?" Lori asked.

"Not _your_ people, sweetheart," Merle said. "Your people just breed marshmallows." He looked at Carl and winked.

"Hey, Shane, when ya get yer first rifle?" Daryl asked.

"When I was ten," Shane answered. "Why?"

"Just curious."

"You mean a B.B. gun," Lori said.

"No, I had a rifle when I was ten," Shane told her. "My dad owned it, technically, of course, but he considered it _mine_. We'd go shooting together in the woods on a range he built."

"Ten?" Lori asked with disbelief.

"Rick wasn't much older. He got his when he was twelve. Rick used to - " Shane suddenly stopped talking. Carl was looking gloomily at his plate. Shane draped an arm around the boy and patted his shoulder.

"Who's Rick?" Merle asked.

"My dad," Carl whispered to his plate.

After the meal, Ed made a point of telling Carol to light his cigarette. As Carol fished for a pack of matches in her front shirt pocket, Shane strode over clicking his lighter. "I got a light, Ed," he said, his hard, dark eyes leveled on Ed's.

Ed glowered, but he leaned forward and lit his cigarette on the flame. Ed pushed the line, but he seemed unwilling to cross Shane.

Carol gathered the dishes and left the campfire with Sophia, who was holding an oil lamp, to wash them. Andrea and Amy retreated with Dale to his RV. Ed finished his smoke, paced back to his tent, and disappeared inside, while Morales pulled out his deck of cards.

Daryl declined to play this time. He went for an agitated walk around the perimeter of the camp instead. At one point, he paused to look up at Dale on top of his RV. The man was looking through his binoculars in the distance. "Y'all need eyes in more directions," Daryl warned him. Dale never seemed to look _behind_ himself.

"I keep a good watch up here," Dale insisted.

Daryl shook his head and walked on. Not even Merle took his suggestions seriously. Why would _these_ people?

When he'd circled back to the campfire, Shane, Merle, Morales, Glenn, and Jim were playing poker, while Sophia had abandoned her mother and joined Carl to play War with a second deck of cards.

Sophia must have felt Daryl's presence, because she looked up. Daryl expected to see nervousness in her eyes, but instead there was friendliness. "Want to play with us?" she asked.

"Don't like War," Daryl muttered.

Merle chuckled to himself and said, "My brother's a lover, not a fighter. Aint that right, Casanova?"

"Ain't no strategy involved," Daryl explained. "War's all luck." And his luck sucked. Sophia's was apparently good, though. She had a nice pile of claimed cards going, with a King on top.

Merle looked at his bottom card. "Daryl, man, give me a couple more smokes to bet." He motioned with his hand.

"Ain't got no more," Daryl lied.

"I can see the bulge in your pocket, asshole. Hand 'em over."

Daryl fished out the pack, put one cigarette in his mouth, and tossed the rest of the pack to Merle. "Better not lose 'em all."

"You know it don't matter," Merle said with a wink as he threw two cigarettes in the pot.

Daryl lit up, slid his silver butane lighter back into his pocket, and narrowed his eyes at Merle. He knew his brother was talking about the impending robbery. Merle lacked subtlety, but Daryl supposed it didn't matter, since these people lacked common sense. He wasn't sure if their foolishness made him feel better or worse about robbing them. They were pretty defenseless as was, surviving mostly by luck and location. Shane was the only real man among them, but he was often busy sneaking off to screw Lori or playing buddy-buddy with Carl in order to get closer to her. There were plenty of things Shane might not notice.

If Daryl and Merle took half these people shit, and left them here in this quarry, they'd be like lambs awaiting the eventual slaughter. Someone far worse would come along, and not only rob, but rape and kill. Or the geeks would wind their slow way up looking for food once they'd devoured everyone in the city.

Daryl took a long drag on his cigarette and blew out the smoke. A little beyond the campfire, Carol was straightening the clean dishes in a stack next to the washing trough. He watched her and thought about leaving Sophia in Ed's care with only half their ammo. He thought about the angry words he'd said to Carol this morning.

Daryl made his way over and stood at the very edge of the cleaning trough. He looked into the sloshing, dirty water as Carol slid open the bottom of the wooden contraption. The water ran out onto the ground, and as it softened the earth, he felt his conscience softening him. He hated that meddlesome voice. Merle never seemed bothered by it. Why was he?

He lowered the cigarette from his mouth and left it burning between his fingers near his waist. He kept his eyes on the glowing, reddish-orange tip. "I's harsh this mornin'," he muttered.

"You weren't wrong," she said quietly.

Surprised by her admission, he raised his eyes and caught hers. Those soft, feminine blues were frightened, sad, and guilty all at once. He'd never guessed a person's eyes could say so much.

Daryl didn't like having this conversation, but he wished to God someone had had it with his own mother, instead of just pretending not to see what Will Dixon was doing to his boys. "What's Ed gonna do if ya just tell him ya ain't his wife no more? Just walk out his tent with the girl? Merle and I ain't usin' our tent. You and yer girl can have it."

"I can't...…he'll…."

"If he tries any shit, ya got a whole damn camp full of people won't tolerate it. Shane won't tolerate it." He'd say that _he_ wouldn't tolerate it, but he wasn't sure she would care about that. She had no reason to trust his promise. And in a few days, he might not even be here. Shane, at least, she probably respected. "Just don't be alone with him."

"You don't understand."

"Understand more than ya know." Daryl's eyes fell to the wet earth. He walked on, put the dry tobacco between his lips, and dragged on the cigarette with a hiss.

[*]

Daryl had been asleep when Merle finally left the poker game and returned to his sleeping bag last night, but when he awoke the next morning, Merle was loading up his rifle.

"Goin' huntin' with me this mornin'?" Daryl asked as he slid out of his bag and sat up to pull on his boots. He'd slept fully dressed, as usual.

"Goin' on a supply run to Atlanta. Shane's sendin' T-Dog, Glenn, and Morales, too. With them men out, be a good time for you to scope out where everyone keeps their ammo."

"Why go then?" Daryl reasoned. " _You_ stay and scope out the ammo. I got to hunt."

"Blondie's comin' on the run. Could be my chance for a little lovin'."

Daryl scratched the back of his neck. He breathed in the air. It felt clean in his lungs, no smog drifting from the nearby city. If it weren't for the decaying bodies walking around, he might think the end of the world was a _good_ thing. "Hell they sendin' Andrea for?" he asked. "She even know how to use a gun?"

"She's got one her daddy gave her. Don't think he taught her to shoot straight though. She don't even know how to take it apart to clean it. And get this, they're sending Jacqui too."

"Jacqui? The hell, man? Y'all just gonna have to cover her ass."

"I know," Merle agreed. "And the Oriental's too, probably. But I ain't the man in charge. If I were, wouldn't be such a dumb ass operation 'round here."

"Don't see why ya got to go." Daryl didn't like it when Merle left him. It reminded him too much of those years when he'd been left alone with their father.

"I got to look like I'm pullin' my weight 'round here," Merle said, "or they ain't gonna let their guard down 'round me."

"Can pull yer weight huntin' with me."

"I _need_ to go," Merle stood up and cocked his rifle roughly and then put the safety on before shouldering it.

Daryl sighed. He didn't think Merle was going solely in hopes of getting laid by Andrea. Merle couldn't really believe that was happening. "Yer goin' 'cause ya want to look for drugs, ain't ya?"

"Daryl," Merle said in a forcibly calm, low tone, like a father talking to his idiot son. "Did a wild dog really snag my meth off that coffee table back at the cabin? Or did you pour it out?"

Daryl stood up and reached for his crossbow. "Ya saw the dog prints, man."

Merle scratched his cheek. "I do hope you ain't lyin' to me, brother. For your sake, I really do. And if I happen to come back from Atlanta tomorrow with a little meth, there better not be any fuckin' dogs draggin' it off. You hear?"

"Loud and clear." Daryl used all his arm strength to pull back and load his bow. When the arrow was in position, he slung it over his shoulder. He felt a heaviness in the pit of his stomach, a weight he wanted to throw up. Merle was going to start using again. He'd find drugs in Atlanta, they'd steal the RV, and then Merle would binge and crash all the way to Kentucky while Daryl drove. He'd have his brother, but his brother would be a mess. There'd be no women and children to hunt for. Nothing meaningful to do. No one to spice up his food for him, so that it tasted better than anything he'd eaten in weeks. And there'd be one less set of eyes on Sophia around that asshole Ed.

Maybe Daryl wouldn't scope out the ammo like Merle wanted him to. Maybe he'd just go hunting this morning as soon as Merle left for Atlanta. Maybe he'd spend the day out there, find that deer, and feed this camp. And then maybe, just maybe, when Merle got back, he'd talk him out of the whole dumb ass robbery idea.

Maybe.


	6. Stew 'em Up

After Merle left with the supply run team, Daryl vanished into the woods. He tracked that deer for four hours, but it eluded him. He returned to camp with only a fox, which he skinned on the preparation table while intermittently glancing up to see Carol scrub the grill. His eyes flitted around the camp, searching for Ed. He found the jerk sitting in his lawn chair outside his tent, watching Sophia play with Carl.

Daryl didn't like the way Ed was watching his daughter. Something about it felt off, and it occurred to Daryl that Sophia might one day experience a different kind of abuse at her father's hands than he had experienced at his own. The idea sickened him, and he placed his palms flat on the table for a moment before he resumed skinning.

"You all right?"

He looked up to see Carol standing on the other side of the table.

"Fine. Just smells is all." He pointed with his knife to the now skinned fox meat. "Ya got to soak it in salt overnight. Be real tough otherwise. Guess I got to go back and get some squirrel if we's gonna eat tonight."

"You shouldn't have to spend so much time hunting alone," Carol told him. "It's not fair. Ed can help you. He's hunted before."

"Yeah? Then why ain't I never seen him do it?"

"Well, he lost his shotgun when we were fleeing. And we still had MREs and canned food when you got here." She looked back at Ed looking at Sophia. Her eyes were worried. "Take him. He could use something else to do."

Something else than casting creepy looks at his own daughter like he was starting to consider she might mature one day? Yeah, he could. "Fine," Daryl spat. He paced over to where Ed sat. "Need help huntin'."

Ed dragged his eyes from Sophia. "That sounds like a command. Who put you in charge?"

"Ain't a command. Just askin'. Could use the help. Ain't got nothin' we can eat tonight yet."

Ed lumbered into a standing position. Daryl hated that he was a good four inches taller than him, and bigger too. Maybe his size had appealed to Carol at one time. Maybe it had made her feel safe, before Ed was the one making her feel unsafe.

Ed disappeared into his tent and emerged with his handgun. Handguns were useless for hunting, Daryl thought, but he didn't say so. They didn't talk in the woods, but Ed's footsteps were heavy enough to scare away the game. Ed managed to shoot a big rabbit, at close range. Daryl slit its throat so it would die quickly. Even though they needed the meat, Daryl found himself feeling irritated that Ed had succeeded in snagging anything at all. What was more frustrating was that Daryl himself had only managed to get six squirrels. He blamed Ed's tendency to snap every twig. "Yer like a fuckin' bull in a china shop."

"And you're like a little girl in a...ballet," Ed finished lamely. "You tiptoe like Sophia used to when she was doing plee-whatevers." Ed shook his head. "That dumb bitch mother of hers signed her up, paid seventy dollars a month of my hard-earned money for lessons. Can you believe that shit?"

Daryl didn't respond, but he began walking slower, and he gripped his crossbow more tightly.

"Made Carol pull Sophia out of that damn class as soon as I found out." Daryl didn't like the familiar way Ed was talking to him, like he just _expected_ Daryl to agree with every word. "You have any kids before all this?"

"Nah," Daryl said, trying not to sound as angry as he felt. "Not that I know of."

Ed chuckled. "So you got around, huh?" He shook his head. "Damn, that's the part I miss most about being married. The _freedom._ Not that I haven't had a little tail on the side, but I've got to deal with that _look_ when I get home. Sometimes I just want to slap it right off her face." He looked at Daryl deliberately when he said this, as though daring him to defend Carol. Daryl didn't rise to the bait. "But I've got a good one," Ed continued. "All in all. She knows her place. Good cook. Cleans well, too. She's just not much in the sack. Can't keep me satisfied. Frigid thing."

Daryl had no idea why Ed was telling him all this. Maybe to discourage him from coming onto Carol - not that he'd been planning to.

"Carol's lucky I was willing to marry her," Ed insisted. Daryl heard him, but he kept his eyes on the trees, watching for game. He took his tension out on his crossbow, seizing it tighter and tighter. If it had been a pencil, it would have snapped. "She'd have lost the family house if I hadn't married her. She's lucky she had a man who could _provide._ I've been on my own since I was seventeen."

"Yeah?" Daryl asked, not looking at him. "And why was that?" He'd seen that letter in the typewriter in Sophia's grandfather's cabin. The old man had written that he'd "given up" on Ed and kicked him out of the house when he was a teenager.

"I just left. Couldn't stand my pa."

"That's why _I_ left," Daryl said. " _My_ choice." He didn't believe Ed hadn't somehow earned his booting from his father's house.

"See, men like us," Ed said. "We know what it's like to survive."

Men like us? What the hell was he talking about? "We - " Daryl wanted to say _we ain't alike,_ but he fell suddenly silent. His lips closed and he tasted bile. Maybe Ed was right. Maybe they _were_ alike. Maybe if Daryl had tried to settle down and get married like Ed, he'd have gotten just as tired of the domesticity. Maybe he'd have hit the bottle hard like his own father did. Maybe he'd end up beating his kids, just like his father, or beating his wife, just like Ed. Maybe, deep down, he was every bit as much a piece of shit as either one of them. Hell, he and Merle had been planning to rob these people, hadn't they?

Daryl walked faster through the woods, hating himself and leaving Ed in his wake.

[*]

With Andrea and Jacqui gone, Carol washed the dishes alone. She didn't mind. She liked the solitude. She was almost annoyed when she heard footsteps, until she saw that it was Daryl who had stilled to a stop near the washing trough. He didn't say anything. He stood half turned away from her, smoking, and looking off into the distance.

"Did your brother go on that supply run?" Carol asked.

"Mhmmhm."

"When will they be back?"

"Dunno. Couple days, maybe."

"Maybe you'll have a deer by then," she suggested.

She wasn't sure why she was talking to him, why she was testing Ed like this, when Ed was clearly resentful of Daryl.

"At least I ain't never hit a woman," he said.

"What?" she asked.

"Nothin'," he muttered, looking confused by his own words, as though maybe he'd been thinking them but had not meant to say them aloud. "Just…today, yer man, he said we's a lot alike."

"Oh." She yanked open the bottom of the trough and the water rushed out. Some of it curled around the toe of Daryl's boot.

"Guess he meant 'cause we both left home young. And we ain't neither of us educated. But I ain't _never_ hit a woman."

"Why are you telling me this?" Carol asked. He seemed strangely anxious, almost as if he was searching for reassurance.

"Just...ya oughta know it ain't a given is all. Even with men like… It don't have to be like that."

Carol met his eyes. It felt like he was offering her some kind of lifeline, and she wanted to seize it, but she was afraid. What if Ed flew off the handle? Daryl might think it was easy to walk away, take that tent he'd offered her, but what if she didn't walk away _alive_? What if Ed _killed_ her? What would happen to Sophia _then_?

"Make ya a deal," said Daryl, shifting his eyes down to the water that curled on the round. "If'n I get that deer, y'll take our tent." He looked up hesitantly. "Move out. Get Sophia away from that asshole father of hers."

"Why do you care so much about Sophia?" Carol studied him intently. She didn't understand why this man was taking such an interest in her problems.

"Why don't _you_?"

Carol craned her neck and looked away from him. "You don't understand. It's not as easy as you think."

"Yeah, well, neither is trackin' a deer."

Carol remembered all the times she'd wanted to flee to a shelter, and all the times she'd chickened out. But now she'd survived the superflu and then hundreds of those walkers making her way to this camp. Maybe she _could_ do this.

Carol looked back at him. "Fine. If you get us a deer, I'll take the tent."

[*]

Daryl spent the entire next two days and nights in the woods religiously tracking that deer. He slept alone on a bed of leaves, before a low fire. In the morning, he picked up the trail again.

It was another few hours before he finally spied the animal, it's nose to the ground, grazing in a clearing. As quietly as possible, he aimed.

The arrow cut through the humid forest air and lodged in the deer's side. The animal took off running. Daryl pursued it. He leapt over fallen trees and almost twisted his ankle in a covered hole, but he picked himself up and pressed on. He got two more arrows in the creature and ran after it until he was winded and couldn't keep up. Finally, he contented himself with slowly following its bloody trail. The deer was clearly heading back to the camp.

Sticks and leaves crunched as he studied the deer's retreating signs and made his way, eyes on the ground, through an opening in the foliage. He was greeted by two guns, a pitchfork, a baseball bat, and a pipe. The men relaxed and lowered their weapons when they saw it was just him.

Daryl looked around in disbelief. A pitchfork, a baseball bat, and pipe. What the hell was wrong with these people? Why didn't all of them have _real_ weapons at _all_ times?

It didn't matter. He had his dear. Now Carol would take his offer of the tent and leave Ed. His eyes fell on the doe, and that was when he saw part of its belly ripped open and its guts hanging out. Beside it lay the messily decapitated body of a geek. "Son of a bitch!" All that work, ruined. "That's my deer!" Nothing to hold Carol to her promise now. "Look at it, all gnawed on by this…" Enraged, Daryl kicked the dead shell of the geek and cursed it over and over again.

Dale had the nerve to tell him to "Calm down, son." That just pissed Daryl off even more. As if Dale had any idea what it was like to track and hike and hope for hours upon hours…and then to see it all vanish in an instant. Daryl got up in his face. "What do you know about it old man? Why don't you take that stupid hat and go back to _On Golden Pond_!" Daryl growled and paced back to the animal. "Been tracking this deer for miles." Miles and hours, hoping that if he brought it home, Carol would walk away from that bastard. "Wanted to drag it back to camp." His arrows whisked as he yanked them out one by one. "Cook us up some venison."

Maybe the cause wasn't completely lost. Maybe Carol would keep her word if they could still eat the thing. "What you think? Think we can cut around this chewed up part right here?"

"I would not risk that," Shane said, his rifle behind his shoulders now, his arms slung over it like a baseball bat.

"It's a damn shame," Daryl muttered. And for more reasons than one. At least he had some squirrel. He had just turned to tell the others "that'll have to do," when he spied Andrea. That must mean Merle was back.

Suddenly, the geek's head snapped near Morales's feet, and the big man took a step back.

"Oh God," Amy said, like she was about to throw up, and Andrea lead her away.

Jesus. They'd just left the head there alive. It could have bitten someone's ankles, rolling and snapping on the ground like that. "Come on people, what the hell?" Daryl put an arrow in one of its eyes. Then he put the toe of his boot on the forehead – not too hard, so as to avoid bursting the fleshy shell and spewing blood all over his pants, and slid his arrow back out. "You got to get the brain. Don't y'all know nothin'?"

Daryl paced off. He didn't care what happened to the pansy ass men in this camp, but, shit…he couldn't take Dale's RV and leave the women and children defenseless. These men didn't know how to _survive._

He was going to have to tell his brother that the robbery was off. They had a new plan now: protecting these people's sorry asses. If they did that, hell, maybe Andrea would be grateful and Merle would finally have his shot at her. Maybe Carol would leave her pathetic husband, and maybe that little girl Sophia could grow up safe and loved, the way Daryl himself never had.

"Merle!" he shouted as he entered the camp and headed toward their private campsite. "Get your ass out here! Got us some squirrel. Let's stew 'em up!"


	7. A Problem in Atlanta

Before Daryl could find Merle, the man-in-charge told him to "slow up." Shane said he wanted to talk about something, but Daryl didn't have time for that. "Talk about what?" he asked without stopping.

"There was a problem in Atlanta."

 _A problem in Atlanta._

Daryl's footsteps slowed to a stop.

 _A problem in Atlanta._

He felt a slow twisting in the pit of his stomach. Shane wasn't even _in_ Atlanta, and neither was Daryl, so why was he talking to Daryl about it at all?

 _A problem. In Atlanta._

The coil in Daryl's stomach wound tighter. Those words could only mean one thing. The geeks had gotten to Merle. Daryl's only brother was dead. He'd died among strangers in that shithole of a city. Merle was dead, and Daryl was now alone with a bunch of people who would gladly be rid of him if he couldn't hunt.

He paced out in a slow half circle and tried not to reveal the fear and grief that was clawing its way up from his stomach. "He dead?" Daryl was certain the answer would be yes.

"Not sure."

Not sure? That was _worse_ than a yes. A yes he could react to. How in the hell was he supposed to react to a _not sure_? "He either is or he ain't!"

Before Shane could reply, a stranger came up to Daryl and started talking as if he had some authority in this camp. "Who the hell are you?" Daryl spat.

"Rick Grimes," the man said, as though that should be explanation enough. Like his name should _mean_ something.

And the name _did_ sound vaguely familiar. Sheriff Law had mentioned wanting to consult with a Deputy Grimes when he was working Will Dixon's murder, hadn't he? Carl, too, had mentioned his father was named Rick. And wasn't Lori's last name Grimes?

" _Rick Grimes?_ " Daryl put the pieces together. This ass wipe was Lori's husband. Carl's father wasn't dead. No, he was alive and just as self-important and condescending as his wife, with his calm-down-now voice, and his stupid, outstretched hand. Rick was gesturing toward him as if Daryl was an ill-tempered toddler who had just had his favorite toy snatched away, instead of a grown man who might have just lost his only brother. "You got something you want to tell me?"

"Your brother was a danger to us all. So I handcuffed him on a roof and hooked him to a piece of metal. He's still there."

The tense fear and clawing grief gave way to relief. Merle was alive.

Alive...but chained.

 _Chained._

To the roof. In a city flowing with geeks. "Hold on. Let me process this."

The relief was swallowed by a swelling anger. His only brother, his only living blood, left chained and defenseless. Daryl had hunted for these dumb ass people, he'd fed them, and they'd just left his brother to _die?_ "Yer saying you handcuffed my brother to a roof, and you **_left_** him there? ! "

And then that bastard _Rick Grimes_ answered, "Yeah." A quiet, not even truly sorry, "yeah." A simple, "yeah," as if he hadn't just signed a death sentence for the only person Daryl Dixon could count on in this godforsaken world.

Daryl chucked the squirrels with all his might, but they weren't rocks. They weren't arrows. They wouldn't do. So he lunged at Rick.

Shane, like a testosterone-fueled high school linebacker with a girl to impress, knocked him to the ground. Rough pebbles bore into Daryl's flesh through his thin t-shirt. They felt, for a second, like the jagged little rocks his daddy used to tie to the cat o' nine tails he whipped him with.

Rage blinded Daryl. He staggered to a standing position, yanked out his knife, and swung it at that cocky stranger, _Rick Grimes._ But Shane prevented him from striking. Somehow the cop managed to get Daryl in a chokehold.

Everything Merle had ever taught him about dealing with the police instinctively flooded back into his mind. "You best let me go!" Daryl shouted. Make a big scene, Merle had told him. If the cops ever try to arrest you, always make a big scene. Start setting up your excessive-use-of-force defense right off the bat. "Chokehold's illegal!"

"File a complaint," Shane replied sarcastically.

If those words hadn't brought Daryl back to reality and made him remember the lawless world he was now living in, Carol's gaze would have. Her head was slightly tilted as she watched him struggle from a distance, from across the campsite just outside her tent. The expression on her face said, "Nothing good can come of this."

Daryl stopped kicking. He gasped for air when Shane let him go. The gasping turned to choking, and then the choking threatened to turn to tears. Daryl didn't allow it. He crawled to his feet.

T-Dog told him there was some hope, that although he'd lost the handcuff key down a drain, he'd padlocked the door when they left Merle.

"It's got to count for something," Rick said, in the kind of voice a father would use to soothe a frightened child.

Really? It **had** to count for something? What was Daryl supposed to say to that? _Thank You? Thank you, Deputy Rick Grimes, Thank you, Mr. Theodore T-Dog, thank you that when you chained my brother to a pipe on the roof in the hot Atlanta sun, and dropped the key down a drain, and left him alone there so that his stench would waft down to the hundreds of geeks below, you were oh-so-kind enough to lock the door on your way out. Thank you oh so very much! Kudos to you!_

"To hell with all y'all!" Daryl shouted. These people had no idea. No idea what it was like to have _no_ family but your brother, no friend in all the world, no one who even _liked_ you, and then to be told that one and only brother was sitting on a rooftop miles away awaiting his death.

Daryl wiped at his eyes. Fuck it if he was going to let any of these assholes see him cry over Merle, but he couldn't quite control his voice. It was cracking when he said, "Just tell me where he is, so as I can go get 'em."

[*]

As Daryl headed toward his private campsite to pack for the trip to Atlanta, he neared Carol's tent. The woman stood folding clothes behind an ironing board. Why the fuck did she have an _ironing board?_ Had she packed it along with the spices? Well...those spices _had_ actually come in handy. Daryl hadn't eaten so well in days. But the ironing board was asinine enough to make him forget his anger for a moment. He slowed to a stop and stared at it.

"Rick's going to show you where they left your brother?" Carol asked.

"Yeah." Deputy Grimes was at this minute getting dressed in Lori's tent. Maybe he'd paused for a quick screw while he was at it, and maybe Lori was closing her eyes and thinking of Shane. Daryl didn't know. He didn't care. He just wanted to hit the road as soon as possible. "He probably thinks that _has to count for somethin'_."

"Andrea said your brother pulled a gun on them." Carol concentrated on folding a pair of Ed's boxers into a neat square as she spoke. "He called T-dog a... _you know._..and punched him more than once. He pointed a gun at everyone and said he was going to be in charge."

"That don't sound like Merle."

Carol picked up Sophia's pink rainbow shirt, lodged it beneath her chin, and folded in the arms without comment.

"I mean..." Daryl admitted. " _Some_ of it sounds like Merle. But he was - " Daryl fell silent. Merle was planning to rob the entire camp. Merle had been getting the lay of the land. He'd _insisted_ on getting the lay of the land, on seizing the perfect moment. So pulling a gun on just a few of those people on a roof in Atlanta, when they didn't have much of anything to hand over, didn't make a whole hell of a lot of sense.

Of course, it hadn't made a whole hell of a lot of sense when Merle was sixteen, and he'd punched that cop in the face. The cop had pulled him over for drunk driving, and Merle would have just gotten community service and a suspended license. Instead, he ended up with six months in juvie.

And it hadn't made a whole hell of a lot of sense when Merle had lined up that sweet job for them laying tile in Athens - $18.50 an hour, more green than Daryl had ever seen in his entire life - and the next day he'd called the boss's daughter a stupid cunt to her face, so of course they'd both been fired.

And it hadn't made a whole hell of a lot of sense when, at the start of all this insanity, Merle had told Daryl they were going to leave Darlene and Marcus on that construction site and sneak out at night with over half their shit.

Come to think of it, a lot of what Merle did failed to make sense to Daryl.

Daryl always _tried_ to make sense of it, but it was like a Georgia preacher trying to interpret away all the minor inconsistencies in the Bible. It required a lot of mental gymnastics on his part. It required him to assume _he_ must be the one who was perceiving things incorrectly, and that if he just had more insight - if he weren't such a slow-witted pansy himself - he would see that Merle was right.

Except maybe Merle was wrong.

Maybe Daryl _wasn't_ slow-witted, and maybe he _wasn't_ a pansy. Maybe all of his doubts and qualms were good and right, and maybe _Merle_ was the one who was wrong and cowardly.

But he couldn't considered that possibility now. It didn't matter right now. All that mattered _right now_ was rescuing Merle.

"He was what?" Carol asked.

"He was gonna try to find supplies. He wanted to help."

"You don't want to give up on your brother," she said. "But are you sure it's worth the risk? Going back there? The others barely got out alive."

"Ain't got no choice."

She lay a pair of Sophia's folded shorts on the pile. "I don't want to be the one to say it, but your brother might be dead already."

"Then it's my duty to bury 'em."

"Think he'd risk his life to go back for you?" she asked quietly.

"'Course he would!" Daryl barked.

Merle had taken off on Daryl twice. Once when he went to juvie and once when he joined the Army. But Merle had come back after being discharged, and he hadn't left Daryl's side since. Well...he'd disappear for a night or a couple days or a week, to shack up with some girl or meet his drug dealer or go on a bender, but he always came back. Eventually, Merle always returned. Ever since Daryl was seventeen, Merle had guided him, taught him, got him jobs, helped put a roof over his head and food on his plate. _You and me against the world!_ That's what Merle had always told him. _You and me, brother!_

Carol swallowed. Her voice was so quiet he almost didn't hear her words, but he did hear them: "Merle doesn't treat you much better than Ed treats me."

"He ain't my husband! He ain't _s'posed_ to be gentle and sweet with me. We's brothers! And he treats me just fine. Got me every damn job I ever had!" Every woman he'd ever had, too, though Daryl didn't say that.

"He's your brother," Carol said in a quiet, conciliatory voice, and for a moment Daryl wondered if that was the same voice she used with Ed when he was coming close to hitting her. "Of course you want to go back for him. I'm sorry."

Daryl narrowed his eyes. If those blue orbs flickered with a fierce fire, it wasn't so much because he was angry at her as because he was angry at himself. "Ya can still have our tent, ya know. Just take it while I's gone. We ain't gonna use it when we get back."

"I'm not sure that's such a good idea," she answered, her fingertips on the ironing board and her eyes on her fingertips.

"Why not?"

"You're leaving."

"Yeah, so I ain't using it," Daryl said. "Wasn't using it before anyhow."

"I don't think it's such a good idea for me to try to take Sophia away from Ed while you're gone."

Did that mean she _had_ been planning to take the tent before? That she'd been planning to rely on him to defend Sophia against Ed? He _would,_ of course, but he was surprised that she would _trust_ him to do that. She barely knew him. And most people assumed he was an asshole. Why didn't she? Just because he'd asked her to take the tent? Just because he noticed what was going on? "I ain't the only man 'round here who don't like that shit, ya know."

She kept her eyes down, shifting them to the pile of laundry now. "You might be the only man who will actually _do a_ nything about it."

"I ain't," he assured her. "Ed cain't do shit in front of no one. None of the men would stand by if they _saw_ it happenin'. Not Shane. Not Morales..." Maybe Jim. Daryl didn't think Jim was the kind of man to hit a woman himself, but he was like most of the men Daryl had grown up around - the kind of man who believed that if a man hit his wife, and she allowed it, well, that was between him and her. Daryl might have felt the same way if not for Sophia. But a man who hit his wife eventually hit his kids. And kids couldn't walk away. And they didn't know it wasn't their fault, that they didn't _deserve_ it. "Take the tent, woman! Just take the goddamn tent!"

Daryl walked off quickly, before he could feel guilty about leaving Sophia behind with that asshole Ed, the way Merle had once left him behind with their father. Sophia wasn't his, he reminded himself. Merle _was._

As he left, he thought he heard Carol say softly, "Be safe," but it might have been the rustling of a warm Georgia breeze.


	8. Leaving Ed

Lori clearly wasn't thrilled with the idea of her husband going back to Atlanta. "So you and Daryl?" she asked Rick while Daryl was collecting his arrows for the road. " _That's_ your big plan?"

 _Good Lord,_ Daryl thought. What a _tone_ she had. If Daryl had a wife, he wouldn't let her talk to him that way. Not that he'd hit her, but he'd walk away from that shit. Or so he assumed.

Probably to appease his wife, Rick coerced Glenn into coming along, but then something surprising happened. T-Dog volunteered to join them.

"My day just gets better and better." Daryl's voice dripped with sarcasm.

"You see anyone else stepping up to help your brother's cracker ass?" T-Dog spat back.

No. He didn't. And if what Carol had told him was true, T-Dog had less reason than anyone to step up. "Why you?"

"You wouldn't understand," T-Dog told him. "You don't speak my language."

T-Dog was right. Daryl didn't speak his language. He didn't speak the language of anyone in this camp, except maybe Carol, a little, when it came to being afraid to walk away from your family, even if, deep down, you knew they weren't good for you.

[*]

Rick, Shane, and Dale sure were blathering a lot. Daryl kicked the horn of the truck with his foot. Glenn ducked, like he thought his head was about to get knocked in. "C'mon! Let's go!"

Every second was a second wasted, a second closer to death for Merle, or a second more the birds could eat whatever the geeks had left. If he couldn't save his brother, he at least wanted _something_ to bury.

Rick finally started walking toward the truck, but Shane trailed after him, and they stopped and blathered some more. Daryl saw Shane slide four bullets into Rick's palm.

Why did these people have so few weapons and so little ammo? He and Merle had been robbed (back) by Darlene, so they at least had an excuse for their lack of firepower, but had no one at all in this camp thought to stop by a gun shop or even a Walmart when it all started? What was wrong with these dumb asses?

As Rick came around to the front of the truck, Daryl went to pull down the back door. "Keep an eye on Carol and Sophia, why don't ya?" he asked Shane. Daryl turned his narrow-eyed gaze on Ed, who was sitting in that damn lawn chair again. "That asshole beats her, ya know."

"He won't on my watch," Shane assured him.

Daryl nodded and looked over his shoulder to where Carol and Sophia sat by a tree stump, just waiting for the truck to leave. Carol grimaced slightly. Or was that some kind of farewell smile? It was hard to tell with her.

He yanked the truck door down.

[*]

The truck rumbled over railroad tracks. Daryl, his bow in one hand and red rag in the other, sat staring at T-Dog. He was angry that T-Dog had lost the handcuff key and left his brother for dead, but he was even angrier that T-Dog was returning with him, that he was sitting here in this truck at this moment.

Daryl could understand risking your life for your own blood. He was doing that right now. But he didn't understand doing it for a man who hated you, who had beaten you, who had threatened you. He didn't understand T-Dog, and it made him feel inadequate that he didn't understand. So instead of admitting any of that to himself, he got angry and made a subtle threat of revenge at the man who sat across from him: "He better be okay. That's my only word on the matter."

"I told you, the geeks can't get at him."

Daryl wiped the sweat from his chin with the rag.

"The only one getting through that door," T-Dog insisted, "is us."

Daryl hoped that was true. He wasn't sure what he was going to do if his brother was dead. He'd been thinking of settling semi-permanently into the quarry camp and continuing to hunt for these people. He didn't think he'd ever quite become a full member of their community, but he'd thought of at least loitering on its periphery. Now he wasn't so sure he _wanted_ to stay with these people. He didn't want to _rob_ them, but he wasn't sure he wanted to feed or fight for them either, not after what they'd done to his brother. When he found Merle, he supposed, they'd take some of the guns Rick said were in a bag in Atlanta, and they'd forge out on their own, like they always had. The Dixon brothers. Against the world.

But...there was Sophia to consider. The other men might stop any abuse they saw, but they might not _see_ it all. Daryl could tell Ed wasn't hurting her _yet._ But Daryl would also be able to tell when the man was. He'd be _watching_ for it.

The truck ground to a halt. They jumped out and began the walk the rest of the way toward the city.

[*]

Back at the quarry camp, Carol ran clothes over a washboard in a bucket by the lake. Not far away, Shane was "teaching" Carl to catch frogs, but neither was particularly succesful. Daryl would have done a better job, she suspected.

Shane took a kind interest in Carl. The fortunate boy essentially had two fathers here at camp now, although his biological one had gone running off after Merle. Carol smiled at their antics, but felt a stab of envy for Lori. She had _two_ good men who loved her, while Carol herself walked on egg shells with Ed.

"I'm beginning to question the division of labor here," Jacqui said as she set down a load of laundry. She dipped some in the water. "Can someone tell me how the women ended up doing the heavy day to day work?"

If domestic labor was the greatest of her concerns, Carol thought, Jacqui didn't know how good she had it.

"Didn't you get the memo?" Amy asked. "The world ended."

"It's just the way it is," Carol said. They were stuck doing the hard domestic work, just as she was stuck under Ed's gaze. He was sitting on the tail gate of a station wagon, smoking. He probably didn't like it that she was "gossiping with the girls." Little by little, he'd cut her friendships off at home, a fact she only realized gradually, when it was too late.

[*]

Glenn led them through an opening in a fence, at which point Rick had the nerve to ask, "Merle first or the guns?"

"Merle!" Daryl shouted. "We ain't even havin' this conversation."

"We _are_ ," Rick said in that condescending teacher's tone that made Daryl want to put an arrow in his ass.

"You know the geography," Rick said to Glenn.

The _geography_. Daryl rolled his eyes. Was that some kind of cop talk? The _geography_.

Lucky for Rick, Glenn said Merle was closest and that the guns would mean doubling back, so Daryl didn't have to reason with his fists. Merle would be first.

They broke into a jog and headed toward his captive brother.

[*]

"I do miss my Maytag," Carol admitted, daring to talk to these women even with Ed looking suspiciously in her direction. For the first time in years, she was a part of a community of women, and the truth was, she liked it.

"I miss my Benz," Andrea said.

Jacqui rang out a shirt. "I miss my coffee maker. That no drip filter and built in grinder..."

Carol, enjoying the comradery, smiled.

"I miss texting," Amy said.

"I miss my vibrator," Andrea added.

"Ooohh..." Jacqui said, and Andrea chuckled.

Carol tried to hide her smile, but it was difficult. She looked to the left, and saw that Ed was busy lighting another cigarette, so she looked back toward the women and admitted, "Me, too." That was one of the other dirty little secrets she kept from her husband, along with the private P.O. Box for letters from Sophia's grandfather.

The women were clearly surprised by her admission, but also obviously delighted that she was joining in the fun, and they laughed, which made her laugh. She couldn't remember the last time she'd laughed with women like this. But then all her good feelings came crashing down beneath the weight of Ed's voice: "What's so funny?" He lumbered closer on the shore.

"Just swapping war stories, Ed," Andrea said, and pursed her lips. Andrea glanced at Carol, who returned her attention immediately to the wash. Andrea didn't take Ed's shit, that was for sure. "Problem, Ed?" But Carol was no Andrea. She scrubbed.

"You ought to focus on your work," Ed said. "This ain't no comedy club."

[*]

Glenn led them into a building. The bottom floor housed a department store. Once inside, Daryl was more willing to follow Rick's lead. The man did seem to know what he was doing when it came to clearing a room. Daryl followed Rick's eyes and his gestures, and, on his silent command, crept toward the geek that staggered behind the jewelry counter.

Daryl liked hunting, but he wasn't sure he liked hunting geeks. You never had to chase them down. They always came to you. There was no challenge in that. Still worse, he could see the dead echo of their humanity somewhere behind their glassy eyes.

Deer were beautiful creatures. Daryl respected them, like he respected all nature. He respected the hunt, the deer's efforts to evade death, the circle of life, the meat that would feed him and others. Killing a deer was something that could be done with nobility. But there was nothing noble in killing a geek. There was no beauty in its decaying, gray skin, no trophy you'd wish to claim from it. It couldn't be eaten. There was no point in a geek's second death. Killing it wasn't a part of any greater, ordered plan. It was simply necessary, like taking a shit.

"Damn, what an ugly skank," he muttered. The arrow cut gracefully through the air and lodge itself between the creature's eyes.

As Daryl slowly slid the arrow out from its fleshly hold, he wondered, for a moment, what Sophia was doing back at the camp, if Ed was watching her in that creepy way, if Shane was really keeping an eye on that bastard, if Carol had mustered the courage to take his tent.

Daryl shook off those concerns. Sophia wasn't his. Merle _was._ He headed anxiously up the stairs, toward the roof and toward his brother.

[*]

"I tell you what," Andrea said. "You don't like the way your laundry is done? You're welcome to do it yourself." She threw the wet clothes striaght at Ed, just like Carol had wanted to do a hundred times.

He threw them back. "Ain't my job, missy."

Amy warned Andrea not to continue, but Andrea had guts, the kind of guts Carol wished she had. "What _is_ your job, Ed? Sitting on your ass drinking and smoking cigarettes?"

Carol's heart tightened in her chest. Nothing good would come of this. Ed would take all of this out on her.

"Sure isn't listening to some uppity smart mouth bitch, tell you what. C'mon!" Ed ordered Carol. "Let's go."

Immediately, Carol rose, and even as she did, she felt the guilt of her own weakness, but if she didn't obey, things would only be worse.

"I don't think she needs to go anywhere with you, Ed," Andrea said.

"It's fine," Carol told Andrea weakly. She didn't want Ed taking it out on Andrea, either. "It doesn't matter."

"Just because you're some college-educated coos," Ed warned Andrea, "don't think I won't knock you on your ass. You c'mon now."

"Why?" Jacqui asked angrily. "So she can show up with fresh brusies later? Yeah. We've seen them."

These women were defending her. Carol hadn't expected that. She thought if she resisted Ed, she couldn't rely on anyone but perhaps Daryl, and Daryl was gone. Ed grabbed her arm and told her to come on, and, to her own surprise, a small, defiant "No," escaped her lips.

That was when Ed lost it. "You don't tell me what! I tell you what!" He smacked her across the face.

What happened next was a blurr, but Carol knew the women crowded around her like a protective shield, like people who cared, like _friends_. Shane ripped Ed away, threw him on the ground, and beat him bloody. Too bloody. So bloody that Carol wondered if Shane had the makings of someone even more brutal than Ed inside himself.

[*]

T-Dog used a pair of pliers to snap off the chain that bound the door shut, and Daryl, his heart pounding with hope, fear, and the rush of the rescue, kicked the door open.

He tore across the roof, shouting his brother's name, but found only a hacksaw and his brother's bloody, severed hand. Overcome with rage, grief, and fear - feeling instead of thinking - Daryl swung his crossbow around on T-Dog.

At the same time, Rick pressed a revolver to Daryl's temple and pulled back the hammer.

The bow quivered in Daryl's hands, like the pooled tears in his eyes, the tears he refused to let loose. He breathed in and out and tried to get a grip on his emotions, counting silently to ten, the way his mama had once taught him to do, so that he could calm himself and avoid his father's wrath. He'd had to learn very early not to cry. Boys _didn't_ cry. Certainly not Dixon boys. And if it looked like they were about to, well, they were given something to cry _about_.

"I won't hesitate," Rick told him. "And I won't care if every walker in the city hears it."

Daryl closed his eyes tightly to make sure there weren't any tears threatening to overflow. He blinked, and then he lowered his bow. Rick probably thought he did it because he didn't want to get shot, but he did it because he had never wanted to shoot in the first place. He'd just wanted to do the one thing he wasn't permitted to do - cry for his lost brother.

T-Dog stepped back and looked at him warily. Daryl's eyes still felt moist. There better not be any fucking tears in his eyes. He squeezed them shut again and blinked twice, rapidly, to make sure they were clear. "You got a do rag or somethin'?"

Looking insulted and irritated, T-Dog yanked a rag from his back pocket.

After he'd wrapped Merle's hand and put it in Glenn's backpack, Daryl began the slow work of tracking his brother. "He must have used a tourniquet, maybe his belt. Be much more blood if he didn't."

Daryl tried to detach himself from the fact that the trail of blood belonged to his own brother and to think about it like he would think about hunting any animal. Calling his brother's name, he followed the blood inside. It led him through offices, where he discovered that Merle had taken out two geeks. He'd done it one-handed, with nothing but a wrench. "Toughest man I ever met, my brother." Daryl had always admired Merle for that. Merle had never needed to blink back tears. "He could eat a hammer and shit out nails."

Next, he followed the trail of blood into a kitchen of sorts, and saw that Merle had used a gas burner to cauterize the wound. "Told ya he was tough. Nobody can kill Merle but Merle."

Merle, it appeared, had busted out of the building and made his way down a stairwell. Daryl felt a flood of relief, but it seemed everyone was trying to harsh his mellow. They kept telling him Merle would bleed to death out there, that it was stupid to wander around Atlanta alone, that he was walker bait now. Well what the hell else was Merle supposed to have done? His chances were no worse out there than they were being chained to a roof by these sorry pricks. He got up in Rick's face. " _You_ couldn't kill him! I ain't worried about some dumb, dead bastard."

"How about a _thousand_ dumb, dead bastards?" Rick asked. "Different story?"

Daryl didn't give a shit what Rick thought. Fuck Rick. He was going after his brother, and he was going right now.

But Rick tried to stop him.

"Get yer hands off me! You can't stop me!" Daryl was ready to throw Rick against the wall, but then the cop told him he "got it." Merle was family, and Rick got that, because he'd gone through hell to find his own family. He got exactly what Daryl was going through.

It calmed Daryl to have Merle's importance to him acknowledged, and to have it acknowledged by a man who actually _did_ value family, who had tracked his own family as far as he could. Rick had stumbled on Lori and Carl by luck, but maybe Daryl could find Merle by skill.

"We can help you check around a few blocks," Rick said, "but only if you keep a level head."

"I can do that," Daryl assured him. It was a hell of a lot easier for him to keep a level head when he felt understood, after all.

But they had to get the guns first, because T-Dog said he was not "strolling the streets of Atlanta with nothing but my good intentions," and Daryl couldn't exactly blame him for that.

[*]

The Oriental kid came up with a dumb ass plan for recovering the guns _by himself_.

"Even I think it's a bad idea," Daryl said, "and I don't even like you much." He didn't like any of these people much, but he didn't want any of them to die, either. Maybe it was human instinct, to want to protect other humans in an inhuman world. That must be what it was, Daryl thought – pure instinct. Because it did not occur to him that it might be the faint stirrings of a budding sense of community.

When Glenn explained his plan, though, Daryl was actually impressed. It was a better plan than the trained cop had come up with. Glen had thought about his entrance, his exit, the sound of the weapons, and alternative escape routes. "Hey, kid," Daryl asked, trying not reveal his admiration in his tone of voice, "What did you do before all this?"

"Delivered pizzas. Why?"

Well that was disappointing. Disappointing and…strangely reassuring. What had Daryl done before all this? Nothing. He'd been nobody, too. You didn't _have_ to be somebody to survive in this world. You just had to _want_ to survive.

And that was a reassuring thought, because Merle _wanted_ to survive. He'd survived poverty, their father, juvie, the Army, the holding cell where they'd been surrounded by geeks when the end of the world began...he would survive Atlanta with one hand, too. Merle was out there somewhere, just surviving.

[*]

Ed lay recovering in their tent. When it was time to eat, he told Sophia, "Why don't you stay here, keep your daddy company?"

"Ed," Carol said, more firmly than she'd said no earlier, "she wants to join in." She took Sophia's hand and yanked her away from the tent, toward the others, toward her _friends_.

She _had_ friends here. She had people who wouldn't just turn away and pretend not to see what Ed was doing.

Carol swallowed, and as she walked toward the firepit with Sophia's hand in hers, fear and courage wrestled one another in her chest. At last, she said, "We're taking the Dixons' tent, Sophia. They don't need it. We're taking it, and we're setting it up on the other side of the camp, and we aren't going to stay with your daddy anymore."


	9. Vatos

Daryl watched Glenn prepare to run, completely unarmed, into geek territory in order to recover the bag of guns. He was honestly impressed with this kid. He even went so far to pay the Oriental a compliment: "You've got some balls for a Chinaman."

"I'm Korean!" Glenn replied testily.

Jesus. Glenn was more sensitive than a teeny bopper girl. Daryl had just been trying to show him some respect. "Whatever." He readied his crossbow as Glenn ran through the fence and into the street.

Daryl waited, poised, behind a dumpster, but he soon felt a presence moving his way, most likely a geek. He leaped from his squat, turned, and leveled the crossbow. The tip of his finger rested lightly on the trigger, but he didn't pull it.

"Well if it ain't Daryl Dixon." Darlene stood before him in short, jaggedly cut-off blue jeans, a clingy, white tank top, and black combat boots. Her dirty blonde hair billowed out from beneath – of all the damn, strange things – a brown French beret. It matched the wood of the .22. rifle she was pointing right between his eyes. "Long time no see."

Daryl blinked. Where the hell had Darlene come from?

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

"Lookin' for my brother. He's hurt real bad. Ya seen 'em?"

"Ain't seen Merle, no."

Daryl removed his finger from the trigger but rested it just above. "Thought you was goin' to Chicago to find yer fiance's mama."

"Was. But we ran into roadblocks. Backtracked. Found ourselves just north of Atlanta. Those teenagers we picked up? The boy tried to rape me one night, so Marcus shot him. Then the boy's sister shot Marcus, so I had to shoot her."

"Jesus."

"Then I had to get Marcus back into the city, so I could find him some medical care. Figured I could use one of the abandoned clinics here. At least find some medicines."

"Where is he?" asked Daryl, looking cautiously over her shoulder.

"Back at our base. He's still in bad shape."

Daryl looked suspiciously over his own shoulder now and then back at Darlene. "What're ya doin' out here alone?"

"Tryin' to get a bag of guns I saw out the window, lyin' on the street around the corner there."

"That's _our_ bag of guns. My Chinaman's gettin' 'em right now."

" _Your_ Chinaman?" Darlene asked. "You buy him in Chinatown?"

Daryl's upper lip curled. "30% off." He lowered his crossbow slightly. "You ain't gonna shoot me, are ya?"

Darlene lowered her rifle. "Guess not. But if I help y'all get those guns, will ya give us some of 'em?"

Daryl looked her over. She only had the rifle, no handgun, on her. She'd put a silencer on the thing since he'd last seen her. It wouldn't draw the geeks any more than his crossbow would. "Cain't promise that. Got to consult other people."

"Since when has a Dixon ever consulted anyone else's opinion?"

"Since the world ended."

Darlene laughed.

"Cain't promise nothin' 'bout the guns, but I tell you what. I ain't gonna leave ya stranded again, Darlene. Sorry I done that. Shouldn't of listened to Merle." He turned and was about to peer out at Glenn's situation when the shrill wail of a car alarm sounded in the street.

"Oh shit," Darlene muttered. "Did your friend set that off?"

Daryl crept closer and peered around the alleyway. Glenn had the bag in his hand, but he also had a herd of city geeks on his heels. The Asian kid's high-pitched yell echoed through the street: "Help! Help! Help!"

Glenn rounded the corner of the alley, his sneakers squeaking on the asphalt, shot past Daryl, and tried to blow through the fence, but the bag of guns got caught on the metal.

Bow in one hand, Daryl tugged free the bag with the other, but that gave the geeks time to get closer.

The bag now free, Glenn burst the rest of the way through the fence and then stopped suddenly. He stared at Darlene. Actually, he stared at her chest. "Uh….Daryl?"

"She's a'ight." He said as he shot the closest geek and reloaded. "She's with me." As if to prove the point, Darlene strutted past Glenn and took down a geek. "Keep runnin'!" Daryl yelled at Glenn while he launched another arrow. Darlene shot, too, and both of their targets fell at once. "Get them guns back to Rick!" Daryl struggled to reload. "We'll hold 'em off!"

Another geek fell from Darlene's gunshot before Daryl could lift his crossbow back up. She took down two or three geeks for his every one, picking them off like those rubber ducks at a carnival firing range.

Glenn took off running.

When he was out of arrows, Daryl recovered them from the squishy foreheads of the geeks while Darlene held off the herd with gunshot after gunshot. At one point, she dropped her magazine on the ground, yanked another out of the back pocket of her jean shorts, and slid it in. "This is my last clip!" she shouted after three more shots. "And it ain't full!"

Daryl didn't pause to reload. He ran through the gate of the fence. Darlene followed, and then he threw all his weight against it to close it. Together, they tried to chain it shut, but the padlock was broken, so they just wrapped the chain around the poles. Fingers thrashed in the holes between the chain links. Teeth chomped and strained for a taste of flesh. It was clear the chain wasn't going to hold.

"What now?" Darlene asked.

"We run. You first."

Darlene took off. Daryl held the gate closed as long as he could, but the weight of the geeks was too great, and the teeth were getting too close to his fingers. He let go, turned, and hit the ground running as the gate burst open and a sea of geeks lurched forward.

One of the creatures hands came down on his shoulder, and he yanked free of its grip. He watched it fall as he did so, and turned to see Darlene firing. She shot three more times, taking down the three geeks nearest him, but then she was dry firing. He blew past her, screaming, "C'mon!"

They fled fast, rounded the other end of the alleyway, and found Rick, Glenn, and T-Dog all armed with rifles from the bag.

"No sense tyin' to shoot 'em all!" Darlene yelled. She plucked up the bag Rick had left on the sidewalk, with its remaining several guns.

Rick swirled. "Hey, you! Stop right there!"

Darlene shouldered the bag like a backpack and kept running several feet before she began scaling a fire escape on the side of a building. Rick leveled his rifle at her. Daryl grabbed the barrel and pushed it up. He didn't think Rick was actually going to shoot, but he didn't want to take any chances. "She's my people!" Daryl ran after her, crossbow on his back, jumped to grab the bottom rung of the fire escape, and climbed his way up after her. In the streets below, shots rang out as T-Dog fired at the oncoming geeks.

[*]

Ed stood glowering at a distance while Andrea helped Carol erect the tent. She'd chosen a spot not too far from Daryl's private campsite, because she thought he'd keep an eye on her when he got back. Jacqui, Amy, Miranda Morales, Lori all stood around her in a half circle, partially blocking Ed's angry gaze, as they put the tent together.

"I'm proud of you, girl," Jacqui said when the work was done. She put a hand on Carol's shoulder. "You're doing the right thing."

"We've got your back," Miranda assured her. "And my husband has got his eye on Ed."

"We've _all_ got our eyes on Ed," Andrea agreed.

[*]

Daryl was halfway up the ladder when he looked down to see Glenn three rungs below him, Rick three rungs below that, and T-dog on the sidewalk, still holding off the geeks.

When Daryl got to the rooftop, Darlene was disappearing with the bag of guns through a door. He tore after her and jerked back on the door handle, but the door didn't come open.

The bitch had taken their guns and locked them out.

Enraged that Darlene had gotten the upper hand on him yet again, Daryl threw his shoulder against the solid door. It shuddered ever so slightly, and his shoulder screamed in pain. As Glenn and then Rick came up over the fire escape onto the roof, Daryl backed up and took another lunge.

"Calm down, Daryl!" Rick called. "There's no point in that!"

Daryl backed up and ran against the door again, ready to pound his shoulder into it once more, when the door flew open and he stumbled inside, pivoted on his ankle, and smashed his balls hard against the railing of the stairwell. He nearly toppled over. He _would_ have toppled over, if Darlene hadn't grabbed him by the belt and pulled him back. He caught his footing, groaned, cupped his hands over his testicles, and yelled, "Ya tryin' to kill me, ya dumb bitch?"

"The door wasn't even locked, jackass! It sticks a little. You just had to pull harder." Darlene jerked up the bag in her free hand just as Rick opened the door. Behind him, Daryl could see Glenn waiting for T-Dog to climb up onto the roof. "Now stop playing with yourself, Dixon, and follow me. You can bring your friends. If that's what they are."

Daryl took his hands off his aching balls as Darlene thundered down the stairs.

[*]

"Are you a doctor?" Glenn asked.

"No," Darlene replied, "but I was an RN before the shit hit the fan." Darlene had just re-dressed her fiancé Marcus's wound and started him on another IV. The linebacker-sized black man looked smaller than Daryl remembered him being. Marcus had lost a bit of weight.

They were in one of the rooms of a nursing home inhabited by old people and Hispanic men who looked, walked, and talked like gang members. Daryl had engaged in a little chest-to-chest pissing match with a man named Guillermo when they got down the stairs and through the interior door. He hadn't realized "G" was with Darlene until he saw that the man was holding Will Dixon's rifle, which Daryl had taken from his dead daddy and Darlene had later taken from Daryl.

Rick and T-Dog were around the nursing home somewhere, checking things out. Glenn had stuck like glue to Daryl's side for some reason. Daryl thought that reason might be Darlene. The Asian kid's eyes kept falling to her chest when she wasn't looking. Sometimes even when she was. Darlene pretended not to notice. She was tolerant like that, and she probably pitied the pizza-delivering virgin.

"Who the hell runs this place?" Daryl asked as he leaned back against the wall. "MS-13?"

"They're just people," Darlene said. "Kids and grandkids of the residents, volunteers, the activity director, a nurse. Guillermo was the janitor." She put a hand on Marcus's brow and then reached for a thermometer. "Open up, baby."

Marcus moaned and tilted his head back and forth deliriously. She ended up forcing the thermometer between his lips.

After a while the thermometer beeped. Darlene pulled it out and muttered, "Shit." She went and got a syringe, which she filled all the way full with baby Tylenol, and forced Marcus to take it. He spit up a little, in a pink drizzle out of the side of his mouth. Darlene wiped it up.

"Is he going to be all right?" Glenn asked.

"I think so," Darlene said. "It took me a while to get here, and the wound got infected, but I think I treated it in time. I just need to keep his fever under control at this point, make sure he gets rest and enough fluids."

Glenn looked from Daryl to Darlene and back to Darlene. "So….are you two cousins? Or did you used to be boyfriend and girlfriend?"

"Maybe both," said an accented, male voice from the doorway. Guillermo, still seething from their earlier confrontation, looked Daryl over disdainfully. "In the backwoods where this _hijo de puta_ comes from, I bet that's common."

Daryl returned G's puffed-chest posture. "You wanna come a step closer, _cobadre_ , and insult my mama to my face?"

G smirked, but his eyes twinkled with more amusement than sarcasm. "I wouldn't have guessed you spoke Spanish."

"He don't," Darlene said. "But he speaks asshole. Just like you, Guillermo. I'm from the same backwoods as Daryl. Whatever you city slickers may think, we _don't_ fuck our cousins."

"Less'n yer a Dalton," Daryl said. "Or a Wilcox."

"Well," Darlene replied, "there's no accountin' for some people's tastes."

"So you two weren't ever boyfriend and girlfriend?" Glenn asked.

"Daryl ain't never had a _girlfriend_ ," Darlene said. "Not like _that_."

"But you're engaged?" Glenn asked. "To…" he nodded to Marcus. "That guy?"

T-Dog strolled into the hospital room. "Is Glenn still trying to get in your pants?" he asked Darlene.

"Maybe a little," she said, and Glenn flushed from ear to ear.

"She's engaged, man," T-Dog told him. "And even if she did dump this guy," he jerked a thumb toward Marcus, "I got to tell you…Once you go black..." He winked at Darlene, who chuckled and finished for him: "You never go back."

"Shh!" Glenn warned, nodding toward Marcus.

"Oh, don't worry, honey," Darlene assured Glenn, "Marcus is asleep. And he can't beat T-Dog's ass in his condition."

"He can't beat my ass in _any_ condition!" T-Dog insisted.

Darlene chuckled. "Well, I don't know about that. Marcus is pretty big. In more ways than one."

"Well while y'all are busy chattin' 'bout useless shit," Daryl said as he pushed past T-Dog in the doorway, "I'm goin' to look for Merle."


	10. Relationship Advice

The men kept their word and didn't let Daryl scout the streets alone. Glenn, T-Dog, and Rick all joined him in the hunt for Merle. The team scoured several blocks, killing a few geeks here and there as needed. At one point, they crawled into a dumpster to wait out a passing herd that Rick spied around a corner. They thought the stench from the decayed trash would eclipse their human scent, and it did. The only problem was the geek _in_ the trash pile.

The creature's hand reached up from amid the thinning black bags and grabbed Glenn straight by the crotch. Before he could cry out loud enough to attract the other geeks, T-Dog put a hand over his mouth. Rick flung off the trash bags to reveal the chomping creature, and Daryl thrust a hunting knife into its brain.

Glenn closed his eyes and breathed in and out with relief as T-Dog's hand slipped off his mouth and the geeks's hand slipped away from the family jewels.

They waited in silence, heads bent below the rim of the dumpster, Glenn breathing slowly, T-Dog pinching his nostrils shut, and Rick and Daryl gripping their weapons tightly.

When the herd was well cleared, Daryl looked at Glenn and said, "Most action you've seen in a while, huh, little man?" Then he vaulted out of the dumpster, his boots landing with a thud on the pavement below. The others followed him.

"How do you know I wasn't a complete playboy in the old world?" Glenn asked as they crept down the street.

Daryl just looked at him, coolly, and moved on. T-Dog chuckled. Rick said, "Glenn, you should take Amy on a picnic when we get back to the quarry."

Daryl followed Merle's intermittent signs - a wet half footprint here, a cigarette butt there. The trail led through the same fence they'd entered when they arrived. He found a discarded match on the railroad tracks, lifted it, and ran his thumb over the slightly warm tip. Daryl looked down the tracks.

"Our van," Glenn said nervously. "It was right there. Where is it?"

" _Merle._ " Rick muttered the name like a curse.

Daryl ran to the spot where they had parked the van and saw the tire tracks in the gravel. The red and orange hues of the setting sun flickered within the tread marks. He ran alongside the tread marks until they wound their way over to the highway. He was bending over to catch his breath when the other three men made their way to him.

"Think he's headed back to camp?" Rick asked.

"If he is," T-Dog said. "He's gonna show up pissed off and gunning for us."

"He ain't headed back to camp." Daryl nodded at the road where Merle had burned rubber. "Headed fast in the other direction. He's gone. Didn't even look back."

Just like when he'd left Daryl for the Army.

Merle had been waiting for Daryl a block from Rebel Elementary on Daryl's last day of sixth grade. Daryl walked quicker when he saw his big brother leaned against the split wooden fence and smoking a cigarette.

"Hey, can I have one?" Daryl asked when he was three feet away.

Merle always said no, but not that day. That day he reached behind his ear, where his thick, dark brown hair curled up, and slid out the cigarette that was lodged there. He lit it up and handed it to Daryl.

Daryl sat on the top rail of the fence, sucked on the cigarette, and blew out the smoke. He tried his best not to cough, but he did cough, and Merle laughed.

"Got to tell ya somethin', little brother."

"Yeah? What's that?" Daryl took another drag on the cigarette, but he didn't cough this time. A little ash slipped off and rolled down his sleeveless, black Pac-Man t-shirt.

"Shippin' out tomorrow."

"What?" Daryl's heart sank deep into his stomach. "Ya goin' back to juvie?"

Merle snorted. "Hell no. I'm too old for juvie now. And too smart to get caught. 'Sides, that record's been sealed. I'm headed to basic."

"Basic what?"

"Training, dumb ass. I joined the Army."

Daryl looked down at the burning cigarette between his fingers. He wanted to press it against the back of his hand, until it burned a circle there, so that he could think about the pain, about something other than the fact that his brother was leaving him behind again. "Ya tell Daddy?"

"Ya know I don't talk to Daddy no more. You can tell him."

"Ain't gonna tell 'em." Daryl took a quick puff and hissed the smoke out. "He don't care anyhow. Says you'll never amount to shit."

"So he thinks I'll follow in his footsteps, then?"

Daryl laughed. He didn't want to laugh. He was too angry about Merle leaving. But he did laugh.

Merle put a hand on Daryl's head and ruffled the top of his dirty blonde hair. "Leavin' you my bike. You can ride it, but you damn well better not wreck it. Parked it out behind the back of that new trailer y'all got. That place is shit compared to the old cabin."

"Yeah, well, Uncle Jimmy's rebuildin' the cabin. Take a year."

"The way Uncle Jimmy drinks while he builds? It's gonna take two. But take the bike for a spin while I'm gone. It'll impress the chicks."

"Don't want to impress the chicks." Daryl didn't like girls. They were either mean and looked down their noses at him, or, still worse, they were weirdly sweet and giggled around him.

"You will next year."

"Cain't even reach the foot rest on yer bike."

"You will next year." Merle pushed himself off the fence. "Take care of yourself, little man. And cut that mullet. You look like shit." Merle turned and walked away, down the sidewalk, and got into a pick-up with some woman Daryl didn't even know. She looked old enough to be their mother, but Merle stuck his tongue down her throat before he drove on, so Daryl guessed maybe she was younger than she looked.

He watched the pick-up peel off down the road, forty miles an hour through a school zone. Daryl waved, but only for a few seconds. He felt like an ass doing it, because Merle didn't wave back. He didn't even _look_ back.

Just like now.

"Well," Daryl muttered as he brushed past Rick and started walking back along the railroad tracks, "least he left me his bike again."

[*]

Because the sun was already setting when they discovered the van was missing, the men decided to hole up in the nursing home for the night and find a vehicle to return to camp in the morning. They now sat with Darlene around a circular table in the dining hall. Most of the old people had gone to sleep, and the MS-13 look-alikes were hanging out in the common room with the few who were still awake.

Darlene spooned some lightly tan beans into her mouth. "You call these garbanzos or chick peas where you're from?" she asked Rick.

"I'm from the same place you are. Georgia."

"Huh. I thought you were from Virginia. Your accent's different. It's got that old south hint of British in it."

"Well, I call them dinner." T-Dog slid the can away from her and dipped his spoon in.

Daryl popped a handful of peanuts into his mouth and washed them down with a Mr. Pibb.

"You know," Glenn told him, "that used to be called Dr. Pibb until the Dr. Pepper company sued Coca-Cola and they had to change the name."

"I bet you're real good at trivial pursuit," Darlene told him.

Glenn flushed and gave her a dopey smile. "I know a few factoids."

Darlene chuckled and turned her attention to Daryl. "So what happened to Merle?"

"This asshole here," said Daryl, nodding to Rick, "handcuffed him to a pipe on the top of a roof, and this one" he nodded to T-Dog, " _lost_ the key down a drain."

"It was an _accident_ ," T-Dog insisted.

"How do you accidentally handcuff someone to a pipe?" Darlene asked.

"Well that part wasn't an accident," Glenn said.

A low growl vibrated in Daryl's throat.

"Come on, man," Rick reasoned. "He was out of control."

"Sounds like Merle," Darlene said. "He take a swing at someone? Grope some woman?"

"Merle don't grope no women!" Daryl insisted.

Darlene took the can of beans back from T-Dog. "He ain't exactly a gentleman, Daryl."

"He ain't a rapist neither!"

"No, he ain't a _rapist,_ but he's slapped _my_ ass more than once. Not that I'd handcuff him to a roof just for that. That seems a little extreme."

"He pulled a gun on us," Rick explained. "He beat T-Dog. He was out of control, Daryl, he really was."

"Y'all made him saw off his own damn hand!" Daryl barked.

"No one _made_ him do that," T-Dog said. "That was his choice."

Daryl didn't want to admit why he was _really_ angry. Merle had left him. _Again._ He wasn't doubling back to the camp to pick up Daryl. He was just driving off somewhere, by himself. Without his baby brother. Not the Dixon brothers, together, against the world. _Just Merle._ Why the fuck had he done it?

"What the hell else was he s'posed to do?" Daryl shouted, more to defend his brother against his own inner voice than against these men. "He thought y'all left 'em for dead! Ya _did!_ If I hadn't made ya, ya never would of come back. So he had to go! He had to move on! Didn't have a choice!" Daryl popped more peanuts into his mouth. He chewed angrily.

"So…" Darlene said, "Merle's wanderin' around Georgia with only one hand?"

"Yeah," Daryl muttered with his mouth full.

"Well," she mused, "he gets a lot of one-handed exercise, so I reckon he'll be a'right."

Glenn snorted.

Daryl's anger simmered down to a slow boil.

"Mere'll be fine, Daryl," Darlene assured him. "You ain't got to worry about Merle, because Merle's always busy worryin' 'bout himself."

"What the hell's that s'posed to mean?" Daryl spat.

"Means what it means." She looked around the table at Rick, Glenn, and T-Dog. "Maybe this time you don't leave your friends up shit creek without a paddle to go run after him."

"Left ya _lots_ of paddles, Darlene. More than Merle _wanted_ me to leave ya. Left you two rifles and all that ammo and food and water."

"Well ain't you as generous as a whore on Christmas morning."

"And I couldn't find Merle if I wanted to," Daryl told her. "Trail disappeared on the highway."

"Yeah? That's a damn shame. Guess you're gonna have to make your own decisions from here on out."

Daryl drove his knife into a can of cranberry sauce and began viciously sawing off the top. He stuck in a spoon and dug out a gelatinous chunk of the dark red stuff and shoveled it into his mouth.

"Y'all can probably stay here if you want," Darlene offered. "I'm sure Guillermo would let you."

"We've already got a camp," Rick told her. "My family's back there. We can draw you a map, if you want to join us when your fiance is better. There are woods for hunting, a pond, families."

"Marcus still wants to go to Chicago to look for his mama," Darlene said.

"Marcus is a dumb ass," Daryl muttered. "Ain't no way yer gonna make it all the way to Chicago."

"Yeah, I know. But he's real sweet to me. He's devoted. Eventually a girl's got to learn to stop chasin' assholes."

Daryl stood abruptly, his chair scrapping back over the wooden floor.

"Where are you going?" Glenn asked.

"To read Shakespeare to the old folk," Daryl spat. "What the hell ya think? Gotta take a piss."

[*]

Daryl went to sleep alone in one of the empty bedrooms of the nursing home, his crossbow propped against the side of the bed. He awoke with a start when he sensed a presence in the doorway. The bed creaked as he bolted up, and he grabbed his bow.

"Don't shoot." Darlene held up her hands. "Just stoppin' by to chat."

" _Chat?_ What the hell, Darlene?"

Moonlight filtered in through the window, illuminating Darlene's hazel eyes. "I'm horny as hell. With all the shit that's been going on, it's been a week since I got laid. If I go more than four days I start gettin' real grouchy."

"I don't want to chat 'bout yer sex life."

"You want to fuck?"

"What?" he asked.

"I'm offerin' you a fuck."

"Hell no! Yer fiance's three doors down, lyin' in his sick bed! What the hell's wrong with ya?"

She crossed her arms over herself. "Can't believe you're sayin' no to an unattached fuck. You've got a woman back at that camp, don't you?"

"What? Ain't got no woman."

"I always said the world would end before Daryl Dixon ever had a real girlfriend. Well the world's done ended. You're being _faithful_ to someone, ain't ya?"

"That's ridiculous!" he exclaimed. "Ain't got no one to be faithful _to_! Just ain't interested in _you_ is all."

"Ain't interested? So if I weren't engaged, you _still_ wouldn't fuck me?"

Daryl lay back down on the bed and rolled angrily on his side. The box springs squeaked. "Go back to yer fiancé."

She didn't leave.

He sat up again. This time, he swung his legs over the edge of the bed and glared at her. " _What?_ "

"Truth is…I don't know if I love Marcus anymore." She sat down in a chair near the door. "I don't know if I ever really loved him. I think I just wanted a _nice_ guy. I was trying to change my life, and being with a nice guy seemed like that oughtta be part of it. But I sure as hell don't want to go to _Chicago_ with him. Ain't shit for me in Chicago! Hell, we'll probably die along the way."

"Christ, Darlene, then just tell 'em so!"

"I was thinking of breaking it off with him 'bout the time this whole thing started, but then he drove all that way to get me, and it's hard to survive all this shit alone. And now I've got this place and this gang...but I still don't think I can break it off, not after he took a bullet for me. I'd feel so guilty. And now I feel like I'm trapped. Like I've _got_ to be with him. So I thought maybe if I fucked you tonight, and he found out…." She shrugged. " _He'd_ leave _me_ , and I wouldn't have to leave him."

"That sounds like a dumb ass plan."

"It does sound a bit dumb ass when I say it out loud like that."

"If'n ya don't want to be with 'em, just don't _be_ with 'em!" That's what Daryl had tried to tell Carol about Ed. That's why he'd offered her that tent, so she didn't have to be with him. Not that Marcus was any kind of Ed. Marcus seemed like a decent enough guy. "Ain't rocket science."

"He's sick."

"Well, wait 'til he's better, _then_ break it off. But don't drag _me_ into it!"

She nodded. "You're right. I got to put on my big girl pants. Do this the right way." She stood up. "Can't believe I'm takin' relationship advice from Daryl Dixon." She shook her head on the way out the door.


	11. Homecoming

"This one, boys," Darlene said. "It's one of them old ones. It'll be as easy pecan pie down a hungry man's throat."

Rick jerked open the door of the rusty, brownish-red sedan, and Daryl stabbed the geek inside before dragging it out onto the street. Darlene crawled in the front seat and ripped the wires out from beneath the steering wheel.

"Give away half our guns," Daryl grumbled to Rick. Rick had left three rifles, two handguns, and six boxes of ammo at the nursing home.

"Far less than half."

"Don't mind ya givin' one to Darlene, but them old folk is half dead already, and they ain't our responsibility." They had more of a responsibility to defend the women and children back at their _own_ camp.

It was strange that he was beginning to think of it that way, as _their_ camp.

"We still have plenty of guns," Rick insisted.

"Ain't no such thing as _plenty_ of guns in this world," Daryl told him.

"Quit yer bitchin', Daryl," Darlene called from where she worked. "Rick's a generous man. Just be glad you fell in with decent people 'stead of the assholes you usually hang with."

"Ya mean _you_?" Daryl asked.

"Touché." The engine of the sedan clicked, sputtered, and then roared to life. Darlene crawled out. "Tank's half full, too."

Rick handed Darlene a map he'd drawn this morning. "This is the way to our camp, if you decide to join us when your fiance's better."

She folded it up and slid it in the back pocket of her cut-off shorts. "I'm not goin' to Chicago, but I'm not goin' to y'all's camp neither. Decided I'm gonna stay here. These old people could use another nurse. I have the skill. At least I'd be doing somethin' meaningful here."

Rick nodded. "Well, if you change your mind, you're welcome there. We could use a nurse. And a good shot."

Rick took the steering wheel, and T-Dog called shotgun, so Daryl crawled in the back with Glenn. He left his door open so he could tell Darlene, "Good luck. Stay alive."

"You too, Dixon."

Before Daryl could shut the door, Glenn leaned over him and asked Darlene, "Want a ride home?"

"Ain't no room for me in there."

"You could squeeze in," Glenn suggested. "Or sit on my lap." There was nothing lecherous in the way Glenn made the offer. He said it like an innocent but hopeful teenage boy.

"Well that's sweet of you, honey," Darlene said with an indulgent smile. "But it's only a block, and I got some scavengin' to do on my way back."

"Be careful," Glenn warned her.

"Always am."

Daryl shut his door and Darlene, rifle in hand, strutted off.

As Rick pulled out and began driving down the street, Glenn asked, "How does she know how to wire cars?"

"How do you _think_ she knows?" T-Dog replied as he adjusted the air conditioning vent, which was blowing only hot air at the moment. Daryl cranked down his window. This car was old enough it still had hand-cranks.

Glenn turned his head slowly to Daryl. "Darlene was a car thief?"

"No, but her daddy was. My cousin worked in his chop shop. One of my uncles sold the parts."

"So you come from a family of criminals?" Glenn asked.

"No! My daddy didn't do shit but make moonshine. My aunt might of cashed her dead mama's social security checks. Merle might of stole a few things, assaulted a few assholes. but that's the _worst_ of it."

Glenn mouthed _wow_ and T-Dog raised an eyebrow. Rick alone seemed to find the litany of minor crimes unremarkable. As a cop, he was likely used to dealing with far worse, and he'd probably had to meet up with informants not unlike Daryl. In a weird way, Rick probably understood him better than anyone else in the camp.

"People got to survive," Daryl said. "We ain't all born with a silver spoon."

"I uh…" Glenn's mouth hung open for a moment. "I'm totally middle-class. I wasn't born with a silver spoon."

"Nah? Really? Bet yer folks had a little silver spoon with yer birth date printed on it, sittin' on the hutch in the dinnin' room."

"Ummm….yeah. Actually, they did. Didn't think you meant _that_ kind of silver spoon."

"Probably right next to yer little bronze-dipped bootie."

"Um…okay," Glenn admitted. "Yeah, they did have one of those."

"Next to the baby photo album."

"Well of course they had that!" Glenn exclaimed.

"Yeah, well I didn't have shit except my birth certificate, and all that said was Baby Boy Dixon, and it disappeared when the cabin burned down."

"Okay," Glenn said, "fine. I'm not going to win the who had the worst childhood game. But we're all in the same boat now."

Daryl looked forward, between the front car seats, and out the window, where he saw the herd of geeks rounding a corner and lurching in their direction. "Hey!" he called to Rick. "Circle back. Pick up the highway somewhere's else. Got to avoid them walkers."

 _Walkers._

He'd said _walkers_ , not geeks.

He was starting to speak their language.

[*]

The car wasn't the only thing that was old. The tires were threadbare. They got a flat on the way back. Rick left the car running while Daryl ran around to the trunk, only to discover there was no spare. T-Dog and Glenn hiked along the highway to find another car with either a matching spare or keys in the ignition, while Rick and Daryl remained by the running car and kept an eye on the bag of guns. They were afraid if they turned the car off, they wouldn't be able to get it started again.

Daryl lit up a cigarette while they waited. There was an awkward silence - awkward for Rick, anyway, apparently, because he started talking. "You have interesting friends."

Maybe he shouldn't have, but Daryl took those words as an insult. "Yeah? Well so do you."

"What? Shane? What's interesting about him?"

"Nothin'," Daryl muttered. _Unless you count the fact that he's fuckin' yer wife,_ Daryl thought. _That's interestin'._

"Shane's predictable." Rick said. "You always know what you're getting with Shane."

"Do ya?"

Rick nodded. "It's not a bad thing. He was my partner for ten years. I could always rely on him. And he saved my family. Kept them safe."

"Mhmhm." Daryl hoped Lori hadn't been screwing Shane in the woods while they were gone. He'd always felt bad for cuckolds, especially the devoted ones. Maybe now that Lori knew Rick was alive, she was being faithful to him. Daryl didn't know. It wasn't his business.

"Now that we've got all these guns," Rick said, "we should set up a more thorough watch. Sooner or later, the walkers are going to find their way up that mountain in search of food."

"That's what I've been sayin' since the day I got there. Y'all got shit security."

"Y'all?" Rick asked. "You were a part of the camp before _I_ was."

Is that how Rick thought of him? As a fixed part of the camp? The truth was, Daryl was beginning to feel like one. He hadn't even considered staying at that nursing home with Darlene, even though he'd known her most of his life and he'd only known these people about a week. And Darlene hadn't expected him to stay either. It was as if she knew he was ingrained in this group.

For the last hour of the drive, Daryl had been thinking about what he was going to hunt for when they got back, if there'd be time to catch anything before dinner, if Sophia would be upset if he just gathered up some toads in a pinch. He'd been thinking about whether Carol had taken that tent, and, if so, how Ed had reacted, and what he was going to do to keep that asshole away from the woman and the girl. He'd been thinking about Dale on top of that RV, and how maybe to talk to the old man about establishing a 360-degree watch. He'd been thinking about Andrea and those fishing lines, and considering that maybe he'd like to take that canoe out and go fishing with her, if she'd just agree to shut up the entire time. He was thinking about that boy Carl, and devising a plan to educate him in the use of knives and guns when Lori wasn't looking, even if the education was just verbal at first.

It was strange that his thoughts were preoccupied that way, considering that, just a few days ago, he'd been ready to rob the camp.

Daryl tossed his cigarette butt on the ground and stomped it out. He went to take a piss at the side of the road, and when he returned, Rick left to do the same. The minutes ticked by. Eventually, they saw T-Dog and Glenn rolling a tire down the road.

Daryl pulled the jack out of the trunk. "Let's get this thing changed. Need to get home before sunset."

 _Home._

Had he really just said that?

[*]

It was late afternoon when they parked the car at the edge of the camp next to Shane's pick-up. Rick hopped out, calling, "Lori, Carl! We're back!" Daryl and Glenn followed behind him, while T-Dog got the bag of guns out of the trunk of the car.

Rick's footsteps slowed as he neared the open expanse of the camp. Daryl nearly ran into his back. He stepped aside so he could see around Rick. The glare of the sunlight bouncing off a mermaid pendant necklace blinded him for a moment, and then the scene came into focus: a walker on all fours feasting off the mangled remains of Amy. On the earth that stretched beyond her half-consumed figure lay body after body after body.

"No!" Rick cried.

Daryl quickly unshouldered his crossbow. The walker turned and hissed, just before the arrow pierced its brain.

Rick took off running through the camp, calling, "Lori! Carl! Lori!" and looking at every dead body that lay on the ground as he tore toward his family's tent. He paused only long enough to shoot one other feasting walker.

Daryl recovered his arrow and reloaded the bow.

"Oh my God." Glenn's voice quivered behind Daryl.

T-Dog, who had just drawn up next to them, dropped the gun bag with a dull thud to the earth. He readied his rifle and took off jogging toward the tents.

Daryl grimaced as he gazed out at the bodies strewn across the dusty camp. They were bitten, mauled, or half-eaten by walkers. Some _were_ walkers. Dead ones, with their heads bashed in, shot in, or cut off. It looked liked the camp had fought back.

Glenn looked down at the body the walker had just been feasting upon. "Oh Jesus. Amy."

 _Whuuunk!_ The arrow landed straight between her glassy blue eyes.

"What the hell!" Glenn shouted.

Daryl put a toe on Amy's chin and slid the arrow out before wiping off the bloody residue on the sole of his boot and reloading his bow. "She's dead," he said. "Been bit. She'll get it. She'll turn. They'll _all_ turn if we don't get the brain."

Glenn, with an expression of horror and a slightly open mouth, followed Daryl as he made his way through the fallen bodies.

 _Whuunk!_

 _Slooosh…_

Daryl slid his arrow out of Jim's head, stepped over the pitchfork that lay beside his chewed-upon body, circled around a fallen walker, and moved on.

Morlaes was next, the baseball bat still in one of his hands.

 _Whuunk!_

 _Slooosh…_

Four dead walkers surrounded Morales, but so did his mangled wife and children.

 _Whuunk! Slooosh. Whunnk! Slooosh. Whuunk! Sloosh._

Glenn breathed out a shuddering sigh. "Oh God. What happened?"

"What the hell ya think happened, Einstein?" Despite Daryl's tone, his stomach was a tangled knot.

"How did they get past the security?"

"What security?" Daryl muttered. "This old man?"

 _Whuuunk! Slooosh…._ Daryl wiped Dale's brains off the arrow onto the ground before reloading. "Pick up his rifle." The old man was apparently in the process of reloading when he was set upon. He'd gotten a few walkers, but the last one had gotten him.

Glen grabbed the rifle, winced when his hand touched blood, and moved it down on the stock.

Daryl reloaded and carried on.

"Oh God." Glenn turned away from the half-devoured body of Jacqui.

 _Whuuunk! Slooosh…_

As they passed Lori's tent, the flap flew open abruptly. Rick emerged and looked around. "They're not inside." He breathed in and out, like a man in the midst of an asthma attack.

Daryl walked on. He found Ed's body next. "Got what he deserved," he muttered as the arrow penetrated the man's flesh with a _Whuuunk!_ "Abusive fucker _." Sloosh…._ "Get his handgun."

Glenn held Dale's rifle in one hand and squatted down to pick up Ed's handgun with the other.

Daryl's boots squished through blood as he paced on. He refused to think about it. There was work to be done. He didn't know the names of all the men and women he shot next. The gritty effort began to sound like the churning wheels of a train on the tracks: _Whuunk-Sloosh-Whuunk-Sloosh-Whuunk-Sloosh!_

Rick was running around like a chicken with his head cut off, flying between the tents and cars, revolver held downward in his right hand, not even readied in a shooting position, desperately crying, _Lori! Carl! Lori! Carl! Shane!_

In the distance, Daryl spied a new tent set up: the tent he and Merle had been given but had never used. Carol had taken his advice and moved out while he was gone. She'd moved out, and maybe she and Sophia had been alone and defenseless because of it. Maybe they'd been by themselves in that tent, without a gun or even a knife, instead of with her armed husband.

He blinked hard, twice, bit down on his back teeth, and steadied his nerves. And then he began his slow prowl toward the tent.


	12. Tracking Carol

Daryl stopped still before Carol's new tent. Behind the slick, dark blue fabric he saw a bent-over human-like shadow staggering on its hands and knees. Too big to be a child. Not Sophia. But the hair was short, and the thing wore a sundress. He'd never seen Carol in a sundress, and the outfit seemed impractical for an apocalypse, but she _had_ packed spices and an ironing board after all. Maybe it was her, injured and staggering. Or maybe it was a walker. Or maybe it was her _as_ a walker. Probably not the last one. None of the others had turned yet.

He nodded to the zippered door as he aimed his crossbow. Glenn didn't seem to capture his meaning. Daryl hissed to get the kid's attention and nodded to the door again.

"Oh." Glenn crept cautiously forward and gripped the zipper at the bottom of the tent. He unzipped it quickly, three-quarters of the way around, but leaped back when the sound of growling and gnashing flooded through the opening.

 _Whuuunk!_

Daryl didn't have a clean shot, so he hadn't hit the brain, but he'd brought the thing down to its stomach.

Glenn finished unzipping the tent.

Daryl reloaded from his quiver and ducked inside.

 _Whuunk!_

He looked down at the walker, and the nervous coil in his stomach slowly unwound. It had reddish-brown hair.

 _Slooosh….Sloosh..._

After recovering both of his arrows, Daryl put a foot on the walker's shoulder and rolled it over. Its face was mashed up, as though it had been struck several times but not quite killed. Across its nose and mouth was the imprint of an iron.

To the right of the walker's body, Daryl saw the iron, which was covered in blood. A piece of walker flesh lodged atop the sharp, metal tip. "What the hell?" Why the hell had Carol bothered to bring that? He supposed it made no less sense than the ironing board. At least the iron could serve as a weapon, apparently, if you were running on adrenaline like an angry mother bear protecting her cub.

Carol must have hit the walker in the face enough times to knock it down and stun it, and then she had zipped the half-dead thing up inside the tent. What good she thought that would do, Daryl didn't know, but she'd probably never had to handle one on her own before. And the thing had stayed in place.

"Who are we still missing?" T-Dog asked, approaching the tent. "I found Jan and Mitch dead. Tommy and Ruth too."

Daryl didn't know who any of those people were. "Carol's missin'," he answered. "Sophia."

"Andrea," Glenn added. "Shane."

"Not Shane," came Rick's unsteady voice from behind them. "I found Shane." He sniffed, stumbled back a step, and lodged his hand in his hair. His voice breaking, he said, "I had to put a bullet in my best friend's brain."

"Oh, man…" Glenn took a step forward toward him, but didn't seem to know what to do.

The earth was disturbed near the tent. Eyes on the ground, Daryl examined the sign and walked along it - not quite footprints, but the faintest hint of human flight. Rick's cracking voice drifted after him: "I can't find Carl or Lori anywhere! I just found them! I _just_ found them, and now I can't find them!"

Daryl stopped when the trail ended near a series of tire tracks, some that looked old and some fresh, and raised his eyes from the earth. He turned in a circle, looking all around the campsite. "RV's gone!"

He ran and followed the tire tracks for a several yards. Along the way, he found about half a dozen walkers that had been plowed down. He stopped when he saw that the tracks extended a long way down the windy dirt road and disappeared around a bend.

Daryl walked back toward the others. A few of the run-over walkers were still alive but unable to get anywhere because of their broken limbs. Daryl left them alive, straining and gnashing and hungry for the bodies that littered the campground. One was dragging itself forward by its arms toward the scene of destruction, its decaying jaws chomping open and closed. Daryl stomped down hard on its thin arm until he heard a snap, and then he did it to the other arm. The creature fell face down on the earth, still chomping, but it ceased to crawl. It could eat only dirt. "You can lie there and starve for all eternity, you fucker."

[*]

T-Dog and Daryl tossed the last body - that of a child - on the pile. "I'll get some gas and matches," T-Dog said.

"No!" Glenn cried. "We don't burn our people, we bury them!"

"There's a dozen and a half!" Daryl looked at him with disbelief. "Four of us alone cain't bury 'em all!"

"We don't burn our own!" Glenn cried.

"Daryl's right," Rick said. "We don't have the time or the man power to bury them, and we've got to get going and find that RV. I don't think they're coming back to camp."

Glenn stormed off, grabbed hold of a shovel, which was bloody from having been beaten against a walker, and plunged it into the earth. "We burn the geeks, not our people!" He threw his weight against the handle.

T-Dog tried to put a hand on his shoulder, but Glenn shook him off.

"Listen," T-Dog said. "I get where you're coming from, man. I do. We're _all_ upset _."_

Glenn's jaw clenched. "Not Daryl."

Daryl took a menacing step forward. "What? Just 'cause I did the dirty work had to be done? While you just walked 'round snifflin' like a little girl?"

"Screw you!" Glenn yelled. "You don't care about _any_ of these people! You only care about yourself and your brother! If we hadn't been out looking for that racist jerk, this never would have – "

"- Goddamn right!" Daryl shouted. "If we'd been here – if _Merle_ had been here – this shit _never_ would have gone down! But ya left my brother for dead. Ya left him chained to a roof! So he _wasn't_ here!" Daryl paced while he yelled, like a big cat in a cage. "He wasn't here to shoot them geeks and save all these dumb asses! He wasn't here because of y'all!"

"Daryl, calm down," T-Dog warned.

The guilt burned up from Daryl's stomach and scalded his throat like acid reflux, guilt over leaving women and children here, poorly protected, so he could run after Merle. He swung his arm around fiercely, pointing at each one of them. "Their blood's on all y'all's hands! And if that little girl is dead, her blood is on yer hands, too!" Daryl strode forward and yanked the shovel from Glenn. He hurled it into the distance with a loud grunt. "Now quit yer goddamn whinin' and set these bodies on fire, so's we can go find that RV!"

"Glenn," Rick said softly, taking a different, pleading approach, "My wife and child are alive out there somewhere. Carol and Sophia and Andrea. Women and children, who may not even be armed. We have to go after that RV _now._ Let the dead bury the dead."

Glenn sniffed. He swallowed and looked at the pile of bodies. Then he pushed past Rick, hiked to one of the pick-ups, ripped a gas can out of it, and hiked back. He began to splash the foul-smelling liquid in wide arcs over the pile of mangled bodies.

[*]

Merle's motorcycle sputtered to a stop. Daryl kicked out the stand and slid off. His thigh muscles stretched as he got down on his haunches near the dirt at a fork in the road. After touching the tire marks, he looked left and then right.

Behind him, Rick left the engine running and the front door open as he stepped out of Shane's pick-up. They'd chosen the vehicle because it was the largest available, in good running condition, and the keys were easy to dig out of Shane's pocket. The tank was also nearly full. They'd filled the bed with the remaining canned food, bottled water, and gas cans, because they weren't planning on returning to the camp when they found the women and children. It was too vulnerable to future walker attacks.

The deputy's footsteps crunched over the gravel as he walked forward. "You lose the tire tracks?"

"Gettin' fainter." Daryl pointed to the left. "But they went that away, toward the minor highway." That would explain why they hadn't passed the RV on the way home. The men had taken the major highway. Both led to Atlanta, eventually. The minor highway was more scenic, winding itself along streams and woods. Not that Daryl thought the women had been interested in a scenic drive, but they might have thought a smaller roadway would be less crowded with walkers.

"Then let's go." Rick strode back to the pick-up.

When they were on the two-lane highway, Daryl stopped again. Now that they were on asphalt instead of dirt, there were no more tread marks.

Rick turned off the engine this time and took a moment to examine the scene. Daryl saw him pick up something from the ground not far from a dead walker. A 9 mm brass shell casing rested between Rick's thumb and forefinger when he stood. At least one of the women had gotten out with a gun.

Daryl took the shell casing from him, felt it in the palm of his hand, turned it over, and then sniffed it.

"What are you thinking?" Rick asked.

"Fired less than two hours ago, I'd reckon. The attack must have happened not all that long 'fore we pulled up to camp." If only they hadn't gotten that flat tire, or if they'd left two hours earlier in the morning.

"I could have used you on my squad," Rick told him.

"Just cuttin' sign. I ain't much for ballistics. What do you think fired it?"

"Andrea had a Ladysmith," Rick said. "I know because she pulled it on me when I first met her in Atlanta. It uses nine millimeter." He surveyed the road, like a cop at a crime scene, which, in a way, he was. "She fired from the east." He looked at the walker. There were two more shell casings a few feet from its body. "Not much of a shot."

Daryl didn't think any of these women were. "Can yer wife shoot?" He'd never seen Lori with a gun, and she sure had been reluctant to let Carl use one.

"She's not great," Rick admitted. "I tried to get her to go to the range with me more often, but she doesn't like guns much."

"Carol told me Ed didn't want her usin' a gun," Daryl said. "Guess Andrea's their best shot." And it had taken her _three_ bullets to bring down a single walker at fairly close range. But why had she even brought it down in the first place? "If they's in the RV, why not just run over it? Why waste bullets shootin' it out the window?" Was Andrea really that stupid? She'd been to law school for Christsake. Not that education and street smarts were synonymous.

Rick walked over to a skid mark and tapped it with the toe of his shoe. "Maybe they weren't all in the RV. Maybe Andrea escaped on foot. Carol and Lori saw her, stopped the RV suddenly, and picked her up."

"Andrea ran this far? On foot? Before the rest could get here in the RV? Don't make no damn sense." Daryl walked the road back in the direction they had come until he noticed the hint of another pair of tire tracks. He followed them to the grassy shoulder, which rolled down into a ditch. In the ditch was an abandoned car. "This one of ours?" he called.

T-Dog, who had been leaning against the side of Shane's pick-up, came over and looked into the ditch. "That was Jacqui's car."

Rick stood near them now, a hand on his hip. "Andrea must have taken it to escape." He nodded to the blown-out tire. "She lost control, left it in the ditch, got out, and fled on foot. Shot that walker. Then the others saw her and picked her up."

Daryl nodded. "And then they probably kept headin' west."

Glenn, who had been sitting in the extended cab of the pick-up with the bag of guns between his feet, finally got out. "What's going on?" he asked. "The sun is going to set soon."

"We keep going," Rick said, striding past him. "We'll press on through the night if we have to."

"Not the safest time to be traveling," Glenn warned as Daryl followed Rick past him.

Daryl looked back at him. "Ain't safe for them women and kids neither."

Glenn nodded, and the men pressed on.

[*]

Ten miles later, they found the RV by the side of the road. Daryl wondered if the women had planned to drive to meet them outside of Atlanta, to warn them the camp was overrun, or if they were just running in fear, not even knowing where they were going. Steam was rising from the front of the vehicle. He dismounted his brother's motorcycle and readied his bow.

The other men leaped out of the pick-up. "Jim said something about it needing a radiator hose," Glenn said as they cautiously neared the RV.

They surrounded the front door with weapons pointed. The white door was covered in bloody brownish-read streaks. A hand print half covered the handle. The door itself was dented in, as though it had been pounded on by a herd. The lock had busted open, and the door was slightly ajar.

"Shit," Daryl muttered beneath his breath. The walkers must have gotten inside.

This time, when Daryl nodded, Glenn knew what to do. He yanked the RV door all the way open and leaped back.

Nothing came out of the RV - not even a sound. A silent, dead walker lay face down in the entryway. T-Dog dragged it out by its ankles and rolled it over. It had been shot three times - once in the chest, once in the chin, and finally in the forehead.

Rick took a slow step inside, and then another. Daryl followed.

The RV was empty. The rear window was open, the glass completely pushed out. It looked like they'd escaped through the opening so that they could flee on foot before the walkers could get to them in the RV. The walkers had to have heard them climbing out and pursued them, which was why there was only one in the RV.

Daryl jumped back down onto the road. The sun was starting to set, so he shielded his eyes against the flickering light with his hand as he studied the sign. His gaze swept over asphalt, then the grass at the shoulder, and hit the guardrail, where a torn piece of clothing clung to the sharp, broken metal. It was pink. Sophia owned a pink, rainbow shirt. He remembered Carol folding it on the ironing board when he left for Atlanta.

Rick, coming out of the RV and seeing what he saw, ran to the guardrail. "Lori!" he shouted. "Carl!" But there was only his own echo, followed by a responding growl.


	13. Escape

Daryl hastened to Rick's side. One walker splashed in the shallow stream below, its left leg apparently stuck in a muddy hole in the creek bed, the water lapping just below its knee. Two dead walkers floated face down on either side of it. Four more living ones clawed at the embankment on the opposite side of the creek, as though something living had recently climbed up it. Maybe Carol and the girl were on the other side.

Daryl shot his crossbow, and as the arrow was still sailing through the air, he vaulted over the guardrail. The arrow pierced the head of the walker that was trapped in the water as Daryl slid down the hill through grass and brush to the creek below. His boots landed with a splash in the cool, murky water, but he caught himself with one hand on the shore and thrust himself up into a standing position.

The clawing walkers stopped, turned, and lurched toward him. His first feeling was relief. None of them bore a familiar face - no Carol, no Lori, no Andrea. But soon his survival instinct - mixed with a healthy dose of fear - overtook the relief. Daryl reloaded and shot the closest walker, the first to set foot in the water after him. His heart pounding, he struggled to reload. By the time he got the arrow in, the second walker was a mere three feet away. If T-Dog hadn't shot his rifle from the road above, Daryl wouldn't have been able to raise the bow in time. The walker collapsed, and Daryl shot the one behind it instead. T-Dog picked off the fourth.

As Daryl recovered his three arrows, the water splashed behind him. Rick was at his side, followed soon by T-Dog and Glenn.

The sun had disappeared farther below the tree line now, so Daryl pulled a small flashlight out of his pocket and swept the beam over the shoreline, where he found a spent shell casing. The artificial light flickered over the black water until it illuminated two more shell casings bobbing back and forth in the creek near the shore.

"Andrea shot those two walkers in the water," Rick speculated. "Her aim is getting better."

Daryl turned the beam to the side of the dirt embankment to better reveal the marks.

Rick's eyes followed the light. "Looks like they climbed up to get away from the walkers that were pursuing them."

"Yeah," Daryl agreed. "One woman went up first." He pointed to a pair of footholds. "Then another pushed the kids up 'n over." He swept his hand up and down to indicate the way the earth had been rubbed off the side of the embankment. "Then the second woman went up." He put his finger in one of the original footholds, which had been enlarged by a second pair of feet.

"Not a third?" T-Dog asked.

Daryl stepped back, turned, and shone the beam along the shoreline. Partial prints were indented into the gravelly, damp dirt. He could tell by the gait that one pair was a running human, but the rest were too close together. He pointed down their path. "Andrea ran that way. Probably realized she couldn't get up the hill in time. Looks like three walkers followed her."

"How do you know it was Andrea?" Glenn asked.

"Because the kids went up the bank," Rick said, "and there's no way in hell Lori or Carol would run _away_ from their children."

"Which way do we go first?" Glenn asked.

"Up," Daryl insisted. "Ain't even a question. We know Andrea's at least armed."

"She might be out of bullets by now, though," Glenn said. "And she's alone. With three walkers after her."

"Ain't got no kids with her," Daryl insisted. "We got a little girl up there somewheres."

"And a little boy," Rick added.

"You and Daryl go up," T-Dog told Rick. "Glenn and I will look for Andrea. We meet up back by the RV in an hour, whether we find her or not."

Daryl nodded. "Cover me." He put the maglite between his teeth, the crossbow on his back, and prepared to scale the embankment.

"No," Rick insisted, " _You_ cover _me_ first."

Daryl took his foot off the embankment and set it back on the ground. The man was in pursuit of his family. He had the right to go first. Daryl took the flashlight out of his mouth and handed it to Glenn. "Light the way."

Glenn crinkled his nose, wiped the tail end of the flashlight off on his shirt, and then shone it on the embankment.

"Ain't got cooties," Daryl grumbled. He turned his attention to Rick and readied his crossbow.

Rick holstered his gun, grabbed a root growing out of the hill, found a foothold, and boosted himself up. He climbed carefully. His hand was just on top of the embankment when the decaying hand of a walker covered it.

"Oh shit!" Glenn cried. "Shoot it!"

"Cain't yet." Daryl had to wait until it had crawled forward enough to reveal its head and was about to bite Rick's hand before he had a clean shot. The creature's grip slackened once the arrow was in its head.

Rick slid down a foot, caught himself, and then climbed the rest of the way up. They could see him standing there, but couldn't see what he saw until he threw himself to the ground, calling, "Daryl!"

A walker lurched forward in the now empty space before him, drawn perhaps by T-Dog's earlier rifle blasts. Daryl shot it with his quieter crossbow.

They waited expectantly on the bank below until Rick stood again. "All clear!"

Daryl shouldered his crossbow and headed up the embankment while T-Dog covered him with his rifle and Glenn shone the light. Once he was up top, he called down, "Want my maglite back."

Glenn tossed it up, and Daryl caught it in one hand. T-Dog pulled out his own flashlight and headed down Andrea's trail, Glenn in tow.

At the top of the embankment was a large, grassy field extending out toward the forest. With his crossbow on his shoulder, Daryl swung the beam of light over the grass to see where it had been pushed down by fleeing people. He jogged down the trail, Rick fast on his heels.

[*]

The events of the past several hours were a jumbled blur in Carol's mind. She'd been enjoying her second Ed-free evening in her own tent, with the flap unzipped to let in the evening air. Sophia sat cross-legged on her sleeping bag as Carol read aloud to her from a young adult novel Ed had called "stupid." She was just beginning to turn a page when Dale's cry went up from on top of his RV: "Herd! There's a whole herd of them!"

There was no time to flee. Suddenly, those things were _everywhere_ , and for a terrified, twisted moment, Carol thought God was punishing her for leaving Ed. Ed had the handgun, after all, and they had nothing.

She could hear gunshots ringing through the camp and the sounds of bludgeoning. She dropped the book and told Sophia to run, but just as the girl got to her feet, A walker lurched inside their tent. Carol, frantic for any defense, seized the iron. Fueled by pure adrenaline, she swung it with a half-sobbing cry, and planted the metal straight into the walker's face.

She had no idea how many times she beat the thing, but while she did so, Sophia escpaed, and eventually the creature fell to its knees. Carol slammed it one last time in the back of the head, and it slumped face-first to the floor of the tent, but it was still moving. She tossed the iron aside, bolted from the tent, and zipped the thing up inside before it could come for them. When she turned, however, she found the entire camp in turmoil, filled with shouts of pain and terror, walkers attacking everyone.

She seized Sohia's hand, and they weaved toward the RV, where Dale was now standing with the door open and waving them to safety. Lori and Carl had already made it inside, but Amy and Andrea were nowhere to be seen. Dale kept guard, firing his rifle into the oncoming herd, while they climbed inside. Before he could join them, however, he was set upon.

Carol, feeling the guilt already beginning to gnaw at her gut, slammed the door on Dale's high-pitched screaming. She knew it was too late to save him, but she still felt like a murderess as she threw her back against the door to hold it in place. It shuddered as the walkers tried to claw their way inside.

"Get on the bed!" she ordered the kids, who climbed up on it, while Lori tried frantically tried to start the RV. As the door popped open and slammed back, the engine caught, and Lori slammed down on the accelrator. There was a _thud-thud-thud_ and the feeling of jumping over speed bumps as the RV roared forward.

Once the RV was rolling away from the camp, Carol gathered both children to her side on the couch bed, like a mother hen gathering its chicks under its wings.

Later, when they were down on the highway, they ran into Andrea, who was fleeing walkers on foot and turning to shoot behind herself. Lori skidded to a stop, and they took her inside, leaving the grasping monsters in their wake. Andrea had tried to escape by car, but had crashed into a walker and skidded into a ditch.

They drove on, through the whimpers of Carl and Sophia, through the setting sun. Lori wanted to go toward Atlanta, toward Rick, but the RV broke down, a cloud of steam rising from the engine.

They sat there in the non-moving RV, watching walkers lurching at the side of the roadway through the windows, and argued about what to do. The argument didn't last long, because the walkers began to stumble toward them and surround the door of the camper.

Carol smashed the window in the back with a pot, and they escaped that way, Andrea first, so she could catch the children.

They'd fled on foot, Andrea firing into the now pursuing creatures. Andrea had been separated from them at the creek. They'd scaled the embankment, found yet more walkers, and run across a field to get away from them. Now, Lori and Carol and the children were inching their way across a large, thick, fallen tree that spanned another part of the creek from bank to bank – anything to get away from the pursuing walkers.

Sure enough, the walkers couldn't balance and tumbled one by one to the shallow water below. One broke both its legs in the fall and it couldn't move. The other started to pull itself up in the water. Lori reached the opposite bank, followed by a scurrying Carl, whom she gathered with relief into her embrace.

Carol was almost all the way across when she heard a gasp from Sophia and turned. She reached out to grasp and balance her tottering daughter, but Sophia slipped through her fingers. The little girl timbled through the air, several feet to the water below. There arose a deafening snap, like a tree struck by lightening in a thunderstorm.

"Sophia!" Carol screamed.

[*]

Rick and Daryl ran for several yards, following the sign of the fleeing women and children. They had just entered the forest when they heard a terrified cry of "Sophia! Sophia!"

 _Carol._ She was screaming louder than Daryl had thought it was possible for the timid woman to scream. Propelled by a violent burst of adrenaline, he ran toward the sound of her voice, the underbrush tearing at his pants and the thorns ripping at his arms.

Rick's frantic footsteps fell close behind him.


	14. Rescue

Her heart hammering in her chest, Carol ran the rest of the way across the log and looked down at the creek bed below. Sophia was lying stomach down, not moving, her neck raised to hold her face above the shallow, streaming water. Her screams echoed in the forest. The standing walker, ankle-deep in water, lurched toward her, while the other dragged itself by its arms in Sophia's direction.

"Sophia!" Carol shouted again. "Get up! Sophia!" But the girl only lay there, barely able to hold her face above water, crying out. The standing walker, jaws thrashing, stumbled closer. If Carol didn't get in between her terrified little girl and that lurching creature soon, Sophia would be consumed. And yet there seemed no quick enough way down, no way to rescue her only child.

Carol had played softball for two years in high school, in the days before Ed, in the days when she had friends and something of a life of her own. For some strange reason, she remembered that fact now. She scoured the ground for a good rock, pried it loose from the earth, and geared up as if pitching. The muscle memory came back to her, like riding a bicycle, and the rock soared through the air and thunked against the side of the walker's head. The hit didn't kill it, or even fell it, but the monster was startled enough to stumble back two steps and then look up at Carol. It turned, took one step toward the mother, but then decided the child was a more convenient meal, and thrashed back in Sophia's direction.

"No!" Carol shouted. "Over here!" She desperately scoured the ground for another rock with which to distract the creature and seized one. Even as she picked it up, she realized it was too small, and the hope seeped out of her. But that was when Daryl Dixon burst through the brush on the other side.

He came to a skidding stop at the very edge of the rocky hill above the creek that wound itself like a tentacle through the forest. Before Carol even saw him raise his bow, the arrow lodged itself in the back of the standing walker's head, and it tumbled face down in the water. Daryl loaded and shot again, killing the walker that was crawling through the creek bed.

By now, Rick had emerged from behind Daryl. He spied his wife and son and quickly made his way across the fallen log toward them. He almost slipped and tumbled over in his haste. Lori grabbed him on the other side, and Carl buried his face in his father's shirt.

Daryl meanwhile climbed clumsily and quickly down the bank, using tree roots and rock-holds. Partway down, his boot slipped on the soft, damp dirt between two rocks, and he lost his grip before sliding the last few feet. Carol thought he must have twisted his ankle from the way he landed, but he got up as though nothing had happened and splashed through the water to hunker down next to Sophia, who was still screaming.

[*]

"Shh!" Daryl ordered, his fear rolling out in a low hiss of anger. "Put a cork in it, girl! Y'll draw more of 'em!"

Sophia rolled onto her back in the shallow water, and that was when Daryl saw she wasn't screaming because she was still afraid of the walkers. White bone burst through the skin where her leg had been fractured from the fall. Blood flowed around the open wound. Sophia kept screaming.

Daryl ripped the red rag from his back pocket, the one he used to check oil. The leg was bad. Horrible. There was no holding it together with something as feeble as a rag. So he used it instead to make a gag to keep Sophia's screams from continuing to echo through the forest. Muffled cries drifted out around the red cloth as he scooped the confused child up in his arms.

He walked to the shore, looked up, and in the rising moonlight, saw the expression of Carol's face turn from relief to horror as her eyes fell on the bloodied bone protruding from her daughter's lower leg. Then Daryl saw the rustling of the trees behind her. "Walkers!" he shouted up at them. "Rick!"

Rick shot three times, bringing the creatures down. "We've got to get moving," Rick called down. "Sophia's cries drew them!"

"Cain't get all the way up that hill with the girl," Daryl called up. "Gonna move along the shore until it winds 'round to a shorter bank."

Rick nodded. "Head back toward the RV. We'll meet up. I'll get the women there."

"My baby!" Carol screamed.

Rick shushed her. "Daryl's got her!" He took Carol by the arm and led her forward on the bank above.

Trying not to let Sophia's muffled screams bother him, finding her heavier than he had expected, and ignoring the pain from his throbbing ankle, Daryl began to run.

[*]

Carol held her suffering daughter's hand tightly and stifled her own cry by placing her palm flat against her mouth. Daryl had gotten her little girl all the way back to the broken-down RV. Sophia now lay on the bed, writhing in pain, sweat breaking across her brow, as Rick stood guard outside with a rifle and Daryl rummaged frantically through Dale's cabinets for a first aid kit of some kind.

"Do you know what you're doing?" Lori, who was sitting at the RV's little table with Carl, asked him as he drew down a blue kit, threw it open, and looked at the contents.

"Why, do you?" he shouted.

Lori shook her head.

Daryl went back to rummaging through the kit. There was nothing but some gauze, bandaids, aspirin, bee sting ointment, surgical scissors, and a small tube of Neosporin. He held up the tiny roll of gauze and then looked at the bone protruding from Sophia's leg. "Fuck!" He threw the gauze angrily against the opposite cabinet and wedged a hand in his hair. He looked as desperate and helpless as Carol felt.

"We need to get Sophia help," Lori said.

"No shit!" Daryl yelled. "Shut up, ya dumb bitch! I'm tryin' to think!"

"Daryl," Carol said softly. "Lori's just trying to help."

"Well she ain't! She aint' helpin'!"

Lori stood up and began rummaging through some more cabinets. She pulled out a bottle with about eight ounces of vodka left. "Here, will this help? At least to prevent infection?"

Daryl grabbed it and poured it on Sophia's wound. The blood and skin bubbled around the opening where the bone pushed through. The girl writhed, and her screams seeped out around the gag. Carol's hand grew blue from the strength with which Sophia was squeezing it.

Lori handed Daryl a clean white dish towel next. He cleaned the wound as best he could, while Carol watched in horror, her chest heaving with repressed panic.

The door opened and T-Dog walked in. "We came back when we heard the screams in the woods." His eyes fell to the girl and his face contorted.

"Andrea?" Lori asked him anxiously.

T-Dog shook his head. "We didn't find her."

Carol was breathing in and out heavily now, her eyes on the bubbling mess around Sophia's leg. "Does anyone here have any medical experience at all?" she asked, her voice a quiet plea.

"Darlene!" Daryl exclaimed.

Hope and confusion mingling in her mind, Carol looked up at him. "Who?"

"Got to get Sophia back to Atlanta," Daryl said. "To the nursin' home. Darlene's got to have a better idea what to do than any of us, and they got medicines there. Antibiotics. IVs. Splints. All sorts of shit."

"We can't just leave Andrea," Lori said.

"I'll stay and keep looking for Andrea," T-Dog reassured her. "If Daryl will lend me his bike, I'll catch up with y'all in Atlanta."

"Fine," Daryl said. "But that bike's Merle's If ya put so much as a scratch on – "

"- Yeah." T-Dog nodded. "I got ya."

[*]

They moved some of the water bottles into the extended cab to free up more space in the bed of the pick-up. Daryl lugged the mattress from the RV so the little girl would have something better than the hard, metallic bed of the pick-up to lie on. T-Dog had already disappeared back into the woods in search of Andrea, after being handed an extra box of ammunition by Rick.

Rick and Lori climbed into the front seats of the pick-up and Glenn and Carl slid into the extended cab. As the engine started, Daryl jumped into the bed of the truck and wedged himself into a free corner, while Carol curled up on the narrow mattress on her side next to her daughter, held Sophia's hand, kissed her sweaty brow, and cried.

Daryl looked away from the tender scene as the truck picked up speed, but his eyes were drawn back, over and over. Carol was muttering softly as she stroked Sophia's hair, and it took Daryl awhile to realize she was praying over the girl.

Once, when Daryl was a boy, he'd fallen out of a tree and broken his left foot. He'd hopped home on one leg, trying not to cry whenever he lost his balance and his broken foot came down hard against the ground. No one had prayed over him when he walked through the door. His mother was annoyed that he'd interrupted her T.V. show and that she had to stop drinking to drive him to the hospital. She made him sit on the couch and wait twenty minutes, until her show was over before she would take him in, and while she drove, she muttered around her cigarette, "Jesus, Daryl. Do you know how much this is gonna cost?"

But this woman who lay across from him now had been ready to brain two walkers with nothing but rocks to save her child.

Carol stopped praying and put her ear to Sophia's mouth. She closed her eyes.

"She breathin'?" Daryl asked nervously.

Carol nodded. She sat up halfway and pulled a blanket up to Sophia's stomach. The weather wasn't cold, but maybe Carol couldn't stand to look at the girl's leg. "I think she passed out from the pain and the shock."

"Might be for the best."

"I just keep hoping and praying she'll be all right."

"Ain't no use, hopin' and prayin'."

Carol's eyes grew stern. Daryl didn't know the woman was capable of looking mean, but there was a hard, gray edge to her blue eyes at the moment. "You think she'll die?"

"Not what I meant. But prayin' ain't what's gonna keep her alive. We're gonna get this little girl to Atlanta. And Sophia's gonna be just fine."

Carol's lip trembled. She returned her attention to Sophia. Daryl tried not to notice how the bone in Sophia's leg pushed up and tented the blanket slightly, but his eyes kept being drawn that way.

"Your friend," Carol asked, not looking at him, "the one you think can help her, how do you know her?"

"Grew up together. Neighbors. Next cabin over from my daddy's place."

"And she's a doctor?" Carol asked hopefully.

Daryl chewed on his thumbnail. "Well…no." Daryl felt awful saying it because Carol's face fell. "But she's a nurse," he hastened. "Shit load of experience. Worked near twenty years at that job. And she knows how to get shit done in an emergency. Busted me out a cell once."

"A cell?"

"Uh…" _Shit._ He didn't want Carol to think he was a criminal. He wasn't sure why he cared so much _what_ she thought, but apparently he did. "Case of mistaken identity." That sounded like a lame excuse when he said it, even though it was more or less true. "We was gonna be released in a few hours, but then everythin' went to shit. People started dyin' and turnin'. Got left for dead in there." He could feel himself growing more defensive, and growing angry in his defensiveness. "I didn't do noth -"

"- Thank you," she interrupted him.

"What?"

"Thank you. For rescuing Sophia from that walker. For carrying her all that way. For trying to help her now."

"Mhmm," he murmured. He didn't know what to say to that. He couldn't remember the last time a woman had thanked him – _sincerely_ – for anything.

Daryl turned his body away from her, looked out over the bed of the pick-up, and watched the Georgia pine trees, growing tall among the foothills, passing them by, one by one by one. He wished Rick would hit that accelerator a little harder. He would have, if he was driving.


	15. Arrival

The truck pulled over to the side of the road. Carol sat up and looked around nervously and then peered down anxiously at Sophia, who was still passed out.

Daryl leaped out of the bed as Carl threw open the door of the extended cab. "What the fuck we stoppin' for?" he yelled.

Carl ran to the side of the road. "He has to pee," Lori explained.

"Christ on a cracker, woman! We ain't got the time!"

"Sorry. Can't deny nature." Lori followed the boy, calling, "Carl, be careful!"

Poor kid couldn't even take a piss by himself. Of course, it probably wasn't a bad idea to keep an eye on him, given the possibility of walkers. Daryl, crossbow on his back, walked to the side of the road, too, but some distance from them, just to be nearby if anything should happen.

Water, like a strange lullaby, gurgled in the creak below. That damn creek had followed them half the way to Atlanta. A light breeze rustled the overgrowth that was clawing its way up the bank to the road. The guardrail was missing, so Daryl easily stepped forward a few feet down the embankment to the sport where a splash of familiar flowers grew. He plucked one and hid it in the palm of his hand just as Carl was zipping up.

[*]

When Daryl was back in the bed, and the truck was moving again, he unfurled his hand and inched forward until he was near the mattress. He pushed back Sophia's hair, which was surprisingly soft beneath his calloused fingertips, like silk on leather, and slid the Cherokee rose just behind her ear. He scooted away and leaned back against the slightly cool glass of the window in the cab of the truck.

Carol looked up from her daughter and caught his eye. The woman's fair skin was streaked red from where she'd roughly wiped away her tears, and those lightly wet blue eyes, as tender as a doe's, glistened in the moonlight. "A flower?" she asked, her voice tinted with surprise or maybe uncertainty.

"It's a Cherokee rose," he said, hoping she wouldn't be upset by the fact that he'd touched the girl. Of course, he'd just carried her half a mile, so he'd had to touch her then. Still, he should have asked before placing the flower in Sophia's hair. Daryl never thought to ask before doing things he had a mind to do. Most of his life, there hadn't been anyone _to_ ask.

"I know," Carol said. "It's the state flower of Georgia."

"It's more 'n that," Daryl told her. "The white stands for the tears the Cherokee women shed on the Trail of Tears, and the gold stands for everythin' that was taken from 'em."

"How do you know that?"

"My nana was one-eighth Cherokee, or so she said. When I's a little boy, she told me that on the Trail of Tears, the Cherokee mothers wept for their lost children - the fallen, the wanderin', the homeless. And those mothers' tears watered the earth and gave birth to these flowers. 'Cause that's how strong their love was." He nodded to the flower in Sophia's hair. "You don't see 'em this close to the road usually. So maybe this one, maybe it bloomed for yer little girl." He chewed on his bottom lip and flitted his eyes away from Carol's, because he felt silly and sentimental saying all that. "They say it's s'posed to bring healin'."

With his eyes downcast, he could see Carol's mouth. It twitched into a sad smile. "That sounds an awful lot like hoping and praying," she said quietly.

His shoulders rose and fell in a slow, uneasy shrug.

Carol reached out and stroked Sophia's hair and made sure the flower was situated carefully behind her ear. "Thank you for the flower, Daryl. Sophia can use all the hoping and praying she can get."

[*]

Instead of parking outside of the city this time, they risked driving in. They knew the clearest way to the nursing home because they'd had to find their way out from there. They drew some walkers as they drove, but the creatures couldn't keep up with the truck.

The alleyway that led to the building that housed the nursing home was blocked by abandoned cars and a dumpster, so they had to park the pick-up. Daryl shot two approaching walkers when he leaped out of the bed, and as he recovered his arrows, he noticed the ambulance less than half a block away, its back doors open. "Be right back," he called to Carol in the bed and began jogging toward it. Glenn followed. The thing had been looted of medicines, but there was a stretcher, which the men grabbed.

Sophia was fading in and out of consciousness as they carried her on the stretcher. They squeezed around cars and through the alleyway. Rick led the way, rifle ready. Lori kept an arm around Carl as they walked beside the stretcher, and Carol kept her hand lightly on Sophia's shoulder. When they rounded a corner at the back of the building, Daryl saw two separate piles of bodies on the asphalt parking strip. One contained about ten old people and three young Hispanic men. The other pile had six bodies, all large, hulking, muscular men. Daryl caught sight of one of the tattoos. He recognized it instantly - it was the emblem of one of Georgia's fiercest biker gangs, the kind of biker gang even Merle avoided.

Daryl was still staring at that tattoo, his hands behind himself and gripping the front of the stretcher, when he heard the blast of a rifle.

His left ear rang. It didn't just ring, it hurt. Holy hell did it hurt.

He didn't mean to. He didn't want to, but Daryl dropped the front of the stretcher. Carol lunged forward and caught it. He put a hand to his left ear and drew it away again when he felt a strange, wet stickiness. Confused, he looked at his blood-coated hand. Why was he bleeding? And why was there _so much_ blood?

Lori was screaming. Sophia had regained consciousness and was also screaming. Carl was whimpering. The sounds were dull in one of his ears and painfully loud in the other.

Rick, trying to find the source of the gunshot, was looking through the scope of his rifle. Glenn was clutching and trying to steady the back of the stretcher. Carol was kneeling, holding Sophia's stretcher up on the fallen end, and crying, "It's gonna be all right, baby, mamma's got you, shh..."

And somewhere, out of his right ear, Daryl could hear Darlene shouting: "Hold your fire! Hold your fire! There's a kid! There's….Holy shit! It's Daryl! Ya just shot Daryl, ya dumb ass!"

[*]

Daryl felt like a great weight was resting on his eyelids as he drew them slowly open. They fluttered up and then down and then up again. He blinked the room into view. There was a pink-and-white ceramic cross on the white wall opposite him. Two kneeling figures - one a little boy and one a little girl - were attached to either side of it. They reminded Daryl of all those Precious Moments figurines his nana used to order out of catalogs, until Mama took both Nana's credit card and her mailbox away.

A woozy sensation spread through his head, and it hurt. He raised his hand to his left ear and felt the thick bandage. He looked down and saw the blankets pulled up only to his waist. He could feel that he still had his pants on, but his shirt was gone. Why was his shirt gone? And why was there another bandage around his stomach? He moved his hand along its length, pressing down in every new spot until he finally felt a stab of pain on his left side.

"You fainted," said Carol softly from the doorway.

Hastily, he pulled the blanket up to his neck to cover his bare chest, which, though not lashed as badly as his back, had a few unsightly marks from his father's former beatings. He hated the way his entire torso looked. He never took his shirt off, even if he was screwing some woman – not that he'd done that in a long time.

"You fell on some broken glass when you went down, and it stabbed right into your side. That's why you have the other bandage." Carol walked in and put a tray of food on the table by his bedside. "I figured if I don't bring you something, you won't eat." She pulled an arm chair up near the side of his bed and sat in it.

"I _fainted_?"

"Don't be too embarrassed. You lost a lot of blood from the gunshot wound, but your friend Darlene sewed your ear up good. It was sort of…dangling." She winced.

"How's Sophia?"

Carol smiled. Her eyes got lighter when she did that, and she looked so wonderfully innocent and feminine. It struck him, suddenly, that she must have been beautiful when she was younger. Hell, she was beautiful now. Not porn star beautiful, like Darlene, or hot housewife beautiful, like Lori, or college girl beautiful, like Amy, but that _classic_ kind of beautiful. Audrey Hepburn beautiful.

"Sophia's not going to be dancing at her prom," Carol quipped, "but she's going to _live._ Your friend said she can't guarantee the break will heal completely correctly, because she had no means to cast it. She could only splint it. But at least the bone's back where it belongs and Sophia's conscious and talking. And your friend said there's no signs of infection."

Daryl couldn't get used to Carol calling Darlene his _friend_. Daryl didn't have friends, not really, but it was true he'd known Darlene since he was a kid.

"Darlene had to do a skin graft over the bone," Carol said. "The skin was torn up so badly. It's not pretty, but Sophia's sewn up now."

"Skin graft?"

Carol winced again. "From one of the bodies out front. At least she didn't pick a piece with a tattoo." Before Daryl could ask her if she knew what had happened here, Carol continued, "Sophia may always have a limp. But she'll live. I'm very grateful to your friend. I'm grateful to you."

"Me? What for?"

"You _know_ what for. You saved her life. Down there in that creek, and then you carried her over half a mile. You thought to bring her here. You got shot doing it!"

"Don't hurt that bad," he said.

She smiled gently, almost sadly, almost like she pitied him. "Just accept my gratitude. Please."

"Ain't nothin' Rick or T-Dog wouldn't of done."

"I know. You're every bit as good as they are. Every bit."

Every bit as good as Rick? An upright man of the law, who had tracked his family across Georgia? Every bit as good as T-Dog? Who had a perfect right to hate Merle and still went back for him? The backwoods redneck who had been planning to rob their camp - _he_ was _every bit_ as _good_ as them? "Nah."

"You did more for my little girl in one night than her own daddy did for her in his entire life."

"Ya left him," Daryl said. "Ya took the tent."

She nodded. "Ed didn't even try to save us when the camp got overrun. He just tried to save himself. But _you_ did. You tracked us down. We'd be dead if not for you." Carol stood, put a hand on the mattress, and leaned toward him. Daryl flinched. It was purse instinct, and maybe a bit of shock. But his muscles relaxed slightly when she pressed her soft lips down onto his forehead.

"Watch the stitches!" he muttered, because he was embarrassed by the gentle intimacy, because he thought he might be blushing, and because her lips had felt good.

"Your stitches aren't anywhere near your forehead, silly." She stood straight. "Now eat your breakfast. It was the best I could do with what they have here."

Carol slipped out the room. He lay still for awhile, still feeling the heat of her lips on his forehead, and wondering why that kiss bothered him so much. Wondering, also, why it had felt so good. It was just the tiniest touch.

He reached for the breakfast tray and found that he was hungrier than he had expected. He hadn't eaten since lunch yesterday, after all, and the sun had now risen again. What time was it? How long had he slept?

Daryl finished eating and put the tray back on the table. He wanted to know what had happened at the nursing home, though he could probably guess. They'd been attacked, and they'd fought back. But he also wanted to know who had shot him, so he could kick that guy's ass. Unless it was a half-blind, little old lady who had shot him. Daryl probably wouldn't kick her ass. Then again, Darlene probably wouldn't have been calling a little old lady a dumb ass, either. It had to be a man. G, maybe?

He tried to get out of bed but felt a little woozy, so he lay back down again. Maybe he'd rest another hour. It wasn't too unmanly, he supposed, to rest just _one_ more hour. He _had_ been shot after all.

 _Pansy,_ he heard Merle's voice say in the back of his mind. _Does the wittle girl need her beauty sleep? What? Can't handle a tiny gunshot wound? That bullet barely did nothin' to ya, 'cept take off yer ugly Dumbo ear. Fuck, I cut off my own hand and kept going, little brother! Didn't stop for no damn nap!_

"Ain't got nowheres to go anyhow," Daryl muttered to the phantom Merle. He closed his eyes. A light shadow of the Precious Moments cross that hung on the wall burned on the back of his eyelids, the same way that damn kiss still seemed to burn his forehead.


	16. Turning

Just as Daryl was waking up from his post-breakfast nap, Darlene came through the door. He had no idea how long he'd slept, but the sun seemed brighter as it streamed through his partially opened curtains. With the sheet tucked tightly around his chest and under his arm pits, he dragged himself into a sitting position.

Darlene sat in the chair and crossed her legs. She had light, black bags under her eyes, probably from lack of sleep. "Can't believe you fainted."

"Carol said I lost a lot of blood."

"Not that much." Darlene chuckled. "Maybe you ain't as tough as you look."

Daryl ignored the jab. "Those bodies out front…y'all get attacked by a biker gang?"

"Outlaws and Renegades both. Took an apocalypse to bring 'em together, I guess." She swallowed and blinked several times, and it occurred to Daryl that he'd never seen her cry. He wondered if she didn't cry, or if she just didn't cry in front of _him_. "They busted the glass in the front door, unlocked it, charged in, and just opened fire. Didn't say hands up, didn't try to rob us and leave us alive, just started _shootin'_ people right and left, most of 'em straight in the heart. Thanks to the guns and ammo Rick left us, we was able to fight 'em off, but not before they killed most of the old people and three of the men."

"Six of 'em in all?" Daryl asked.

"Eight. Two rode off when they saw they was outgunned. Sorry Marcus shot you. It just happened a couple hours 'fore y'all showed up, and we weren't expectin' you. Thought it might be them comin' back."

" _Marcus_ shot me?"

"He didn't mean to."

"So he's better?" Daryl asked.

Darlene nodded. "Fever broke yesterday mornin' when you left. He regained consciousness in the early afternoon. Was up and about by the late afternoon. He even wanted a blow job."

"That ain't a level of detail I need." Daryl peered at her through narrowed eyes. "Couldn't he tell I didn't have no gun? That I's holdin' a stretcher?"

Darlene shrugged. " We was on edge. _All_ of us. He just didn't recognize you right away."

"Good thing he's a shit shot, I guess."

Darlene chuckled.

"Marcus didn't shoot anyone else, did he?"

"No. Your girlfriend's safe. Don't worry."

"What girlfriend?"

"Carol. Ain't that her name?" Darlene asked.

"Carol ain't my girlfriend, and I know she's safe. She's just in here."

"I just assumed by the way you went out of your way to rescue her daughter that - "

"- Would of done it for anyone."

Darlene snorted. "Yeah, right. You're such a friendly, selfless guy." She smiled teasingly. "If she _ain't_ your girlfriend, then you _want_ her to be."

Daryl frowned sternly. "Don't _need_ a girlfriend. 'Sides Carol wouldn't be interested."

"Hmmm...a good-lookin' guy who risked his life to save her daughter from almost certain death?" Darlene laughed. "Nope. Can't begin to imagine why that would interest a girl."

Daryl closed his eyes. His head hurt. Darlene's _talking_ hurt. He wished she'd stop running her mouth. But she didn't.

"Can't say I ain't a little surprised. Carol ain't at all the type I'd have pictured you for. Although...when I think about it…it kind of makes sense. "

Daryl sighed. He wondered if Darlene's monologue would go quicker or slower if he pretended to be asleep.

"I mean, if you were gonna actually be interested in some woman as more than an occasional fuck…it makes sense she'd be the nurturing type. Quiet. Soft spoken. Not likely to get up in your face and tell you all the things you're doing wrong. Timid. The servant type. It makes sense because you sure as hell ain't had much tenderness or approval in your life."

Daryl opened his eyes and glowered at her. "Carol ain't as timid as ya think! Brained a walker with an _iron_. Was 'bout to try to brain two more with a rock when I found her. And she's perfectly happy to tell me what she thinks I'm doin' wrong. First day I met her, she told me I weren't butcherin' a deer neatly enough. Few days later, had the gall to tell me that I let Merle treat me like her abusive ass of a husband treated her."

"Well, she ain't wrong 'bout that."

"What?" he spat.

"Well, I don't know how her husband treated her, but I _do_ know how Merle treated you. That's a classic case of abuse if ever I saw one."

"Merle ain't never raised a hand to me! I mean, not like that. Not when I's a kid. We wrestled sometimes, sure. Like brothers do. Don't mean nothin'. He don't ever hurt me any worse than I hurt him."

"Not all abuse is physical."

"He ain't a perv, neither! Never tried to diddle me when I's a kid!"

Darlene shook her head. "Sexual abuse ain't the only kind of abuse neither."

"What then? He _hurt my feelin's_? What bullshit! I ain't no pansy."

"He's _always_ put you down, Daryl. But that ain't the half of it. He _isolated_ you. Which is _exactly_ what abusers do. Made you dependent on him and _only_ him. Every time you started to get a little bit of success in your life, a little bit of normalcy, he fucked it up for you!"

"What the hell ya talkin' 'bout?"

"Think about it," she insisted. "All those jobs you had over the years, why did you keep losin' 'em? You showed up on time. You showed up sober. You did what you were told. And you learned damn fast, too. Sometimes you even got a raise or a little promotion, but what happened every time you did, and Merle didn't?"

Daryl bit down on his bottom lip.

"Suddenly you ended up fired. And why was that? Was that 'cause of somethin' you did, or somethin' _Merle_ did?"

"Wouldn't of had any of those jobs in the first place if not for Merle. Couldn't of gotten _anywhere_ without Merle."

"That's what you think, huh?" She sat forward in her chair. "Let me ask you somethin'...honestly. Did you start settling into that camp in the quarry? Start feeling like you wanted to stay with those people?"

Daryl shrugged. "Dunno."

"And when you did," Darlene continued, as though he had answered yes, "when Merle _saw_ that you were getting settled, that you were starting to like some of those people, that you were thinking of staying with them, did he go and do something outrageous, something to make sure y'all weren't welcome in that camp no more, something like pulling a gun on your new friends?"

"That ain't...he didn't...I mean, he _did_ do that...but that ain't _why_ he - "

"- Christ, Daryl! Think about it! Just _think_ about it. Merle don't want you to grow up and make new friends. He never has! This woman Carol? She knew you what? A few days? And _she_ saw it. 'Cause she's been livin' with it for years herself. She saw Merle was no good for you."

"Don't know what Carol thinks she saw," Daryl muttered.

"I'm gonna tell you one last thing. And then I'm gonna leave you alone."

"Really?" he spat. "Promise?"

"Promise."

"Fine," he muttered. "What's the one last thing?"

"If you like this woman, if you care for Carol - even a little bit - then that's huge. For _you_? That's _huge_. You should let that happen, and you she be glad Merle ain't here to fuck it up." Darlene stood. "Gonna check on the little girl."

[*]

Daryl fell back asleep after Darlene left. When he woke up, he pulled his shirt on over the bandages on his stomach and made his way down the hallway to the common room. Rick and Glenn were sitting at a table with a stack of jigsaw puzzles, and for a moment Daryl thought they were putting one together. He wondered if he was having some kind of absurd dream. Then he realized they had their heads bent over an open map instead. They were probably planning the group's next move. It didn't make sense to stay here for long, in a city flowing with walkers, where roving gangs of survivors plowed down the old.

Lori and Carl were playing cards with a couple of the old people. There were four in the room, maybe a few more in the bedrooms – not many had had survived. G was going about and making them take their pills.

Daryl felt a little weak, and, not wanting to show it, sat down quickly in a chair and tried to appear steady. G strolled over to him.

"Sorry you got shot, _amigo_." He nodded with his chin to the bandage around Daryl's head. "Darlene says you'll be as good as new in a couple of days. Says you're the toughest person she knows."

"Nah, that'd be my brother."

"I think Darlene might be the toughest person Darlene knows," G said. "You should have seen here when those _culos_ burst in. She crawled through the air conditioning vents to shoot them from above. They never saw her coming."

"Yeah, well Darlene ain't nothin' if not resourceful." Daryl looked around the room. "You lost a lot though."

"Too many," G agreed.

"It ain't safe here."

"So your friends tell me." G did his little chin nod to the table where Rick and Glenn sat. That chin nod annoyed Daryl. There was something falsely masculine in it, like he was trying to look tougher than he was. G reminded Daryl of that one really smart kid in his neighborhood, who used to play with circuits and radios and always pretended to be a bad ass just to survive the backwoods, when all he really wanted to do was read science books. "They're talking about going to the CDC, seeing if it's still standing, and if they can find answers there. Me, I think that if there _were_ answers, we'd have heard them by now."

Daryl turned to look at Rick, who motioned him over. Carefully, he stood and made his way to the table and sat quickly in one of the chairs opposite Rick. There was a half-finished puzzle peeking out from beneath the map of Atlanta, a quaint cottage flickering with love and light. People used to have homes like that. Not Daryl, but people.

Rick showed him the map, where he'd drawn three possible routes to the CDC. "There were rumors they were working on a cure. I think we should at least check it out. When you and Sophia are a bit better, of course. We'll stay here for three or four days, but we can't stay here forever. There's not a lot of food. And there will be more gangs."

Daryl turned back to look at Lori and Carl. Carl had just put down a card from his hand. An old lady bent over it and lowered her glasses on her nose. "Nursin' home ain't no place to raise a family," he agreed.

"Uh…Daryl?" Glenn asked hesitantly.

Daryl turned back. "What?"

"I was…uh…just wondering….what are you going to do with Merle's hand? It's going to start decaying in there eventually. In my backpack."

Daryl had completely forgotten he'd put Merle's hand in there. He'd been planning to give it a proper burial back at the camp, before the bodies had piled higher than the time for graves.

"G," Daryl called, and then man who had been talking to an elderly woman turned to him. "Ya gonna bury your dead?"

"We're going to burn them. Emilio just went outside to do it. There's nowhere to bury them."

"When we came in through the roof the first time," Glenn said, "I saw a garden up there. You could bury his hand in one of the flower beds. Put a little cross or stone or something…whatever. Just…" He winced. "Anywhere's better than my backpack."

"Boys!" Darlene called from the entryway. "We got a problem."

Daryl stood abruptly. "Where's my crossbow!" It had been on his back when he was shot.

"I've got it," said Rick, instinctively unlatching his holster. "It's in our room."

"Don't really need it right now, Daryl," Darlene told him. "It's too late to help Emilio. But y'all need to take a gander out that window at the parking lot."

The men, including G, walked to the large, bay-style window in the common room, which was reinforced on the outside by bars. Through the bars and the glass, they could see a dozen walkers stumbling over each other to devour what was left of Emilio.

"Holy..." Rick murmured. "Where did they come from all of the sudden?"

"Take a closer look," Darlene told him. "Those are our people - the ones that was killed. And the bikers."

"What?" Glenn asked.

Daryl peered through the window and recognized the biker tattoo on one of the gnawing walkers. "That ain't possible. None of 'em was bit, was they? Y'all just shot each other."

"They turned anyhow," Darlene said. "All of 'em 'cept the three who got shot straight in the head." Those bodies were still on the ground, also being gnawed on by the others who had turned.

"Are you saying this happens to _anyone_ who dies?" Glenn asked nervously. "Even if they didn't have the superflu in the first place? Even if they aren't bit?"

"None of us ever had symptoms of that superflu," Darlene replied, "but maybe it's _inside_ us. We're like…carriers. And when we die…" She nodded outside.

"Oh God," Glenn muttered. "If everyone turns...they'll _always_ outnumber us!"

A walker that was on the outside of the feasting circle started to wander away. Daryl didn't want the thing to sense them and bring the whole herd pounding on the window. He nodded to the draw string of the wooden blinds. Rick yanked it. The blinds closed, and the room became three shades darker, though some light still seeped through the slats. The men moved away from the window, to the center of the room.

"This place ain't safe," Daryl said. "We got to leave."

"We will," Rick assured him. "When Sophia's walking on crutches and your stitches are out. By then, T-Dog and hopefully Andrea will be back with us." He nodded to the window. "Those walkers will disperse when they're done feeding. They can't hear or smell us in here, through those walls."

"And if them two bikers that got away come back?" Daryl asked. "With more of their friends?"

"We have guns," Rick said. "And we'll keep someone on watch at all hours."

"Hope it ain't Marcus," Daryl said. "His aim ain't too good."

"Juan's on watch right now," Darlene told him. "He's a good shot."

Glenn looked at Darlene sympathetically. "Sorry about your friend Emilio."

Darlene shrugged. "He's in a better place now."

Glenn looked confused. "He's _inside_ a bunch of walkers."

"Just his body, sugar. Not his soul." She patted Glenn on the shoulder.

[*]

Daryl unraveled the bandage around his head and looked at himself in the mirror. The stitches weren't pretty. He was a goddamn Frankenstein. He wanted to yell at Darlene for the half-assed job, but then he considered that she'd saved Sophia's life and maybe his. She'd at least saved his ear, even if she hadn't exactly done an artistic job of it. Maybe he'd grow his hair out long to hide it. Right now, though, he didn't want to scare the kids with that mess, especially not Sophia, so he re-wrapped his head with the bandage. The last bit had just been pressed into place when there was a knock on the door.

With his reclaimed crossbow in one hand, Daryl eased open the door just enough to peer outside. When he saw it was only Carol, he opened the door wider.

"Dinner's ready," she said.

"Ain't it early for dinner?"

"Old people eat early," she replied. "But none of us ate much for lunch anyway." As if to prove her point, Daryl's stomach growled. Loudly. Carol smiled. "We're all eating together."

"Be there in a bit," he said. She nodded.

When the door was closed, Daryl tilted his head and looked in the mirror to make sure the ear was well covered. He checked to make sure his handgun was loaded and cocked and then put the safety on before slipping it in the waistband of his pants. Then he peeked through the blinds of his bedroom window, which faced the parking lot, and saw that only one solitary walker remained. It stumbled about listlessly. Rick was right. Their feast complete, the creatures had wandered away.


	17. Dinner and a Burial

When Daryl came out to the dining room, the old people and some of their adult children were seated. Carl Grimes pushed Sophia in a wheelchair into an empty spot around a circular table. The boy made a noise like the squealing of a car when he jerked her to a stop. Then he kicked on her wheelchair's brakes. "I hear there's dessert!" Carl said excitedly as he sat down next to her.

Lori sat next to her son and Rick in turn sat next to her. Carol of course sat next to her daughter. That left one seat at the six-person circular table. Daryl's eyes flitted to it and then to the empty seat next to Glenn, Darlene, G, and two of the old people. He felt the same way he had the first day he'd set foot in the cafeteria in 7th grade. Back then, he'd ended up eating at the very end of a table by himself, with his free school lunch. It had been the first hot meal he'd had in days.

"Daryl, join us!" Sophia chirped.

He made a grunting sound, like he hadn't cared whether or not anyone invited him, and sat down in the empty chair between Carol and Rick.

"You call him _Mr._ Dixon," Carol told her daughter.

"Thank you, Mr. Dixon," Sophia said. "For saving me."

"Weren't nothin'. Just had to be done is all," he said, though he was secretly pleased by the girl's gratitude.

As two young men passed out dinner trays, Marcus entered the dining room and took a seat at a table with three Hispanic men - _not_ with Darlene.

"Is that the man who shot you?" Carol asked. "Darlene's ex-fiance?"

"Mhmh." _Ex-_ fiance? Daryl wasn't aware Darlene had followed through on her promise to "put on her big girl pants" and break it off with Marcus honestly. How much had she and Carol been talking, anyway?

"Has he even apologized?" Carol asked.

"Don't matter," Daryl grumbled and picked up his plastic fork. All of the food was soft, maybe because old people couldn't chew well, but it didn't taste bad. After his first tentative bite, Daryl shoveled it down.

"This is real good, Carol," Darlene called over from the table where she sat. "Don't know how ya made it so much less bland than usual, but ya done a fantastic job. Ain't she, Daryl?"

Daryl hadn't realized Carol had prepared the food. "Mhmh," he murmured. "Ain't bad."

Spaghetti was the main dish, and Carl showed off for Sophia by sucking it into his mouth with a long, loud slurp. Sophia giggled. Kids were weirdly resilient. They'd just seen most of their camp slaughtered, Sophia had almost died, and yet they were laughing over spaghetti. You learned to block out the horror, Daryl knew. He sure had when he was a kid, though it had been a different kind of horror.

After dinner, Carol began clearing the trays, stacking Daryl's on top of hers and Sophia's. Rick stood and began collecting the rest of the trays at the table. "I'll help you wash them."

"No need," Carol told him.

"No, I'll help," Rick insisted.

Daryl wondered if Rick had done the dishes back home, before this all started. Daryl's father had certainly never done the dishes. Of course, in those final two years of her life, neither had his mother. They stacked up in the sink, until the stack got so high, that Daryl put them in a wheelbarrow riddled with bullet holes, rolled them out back, and sprayed them down with the pressure washer attachment for the garden hose. The water ran out all the bullet holes in the wheelbarrow, and then he left them to dry in the sun. Redneck solutions.

As Daryl finished his can of soda - G had apparently collected several cases from the break rooms in the offices in the floors above - Carl took Sophia for a whirl around the dining hall. The boy ran fast and made car noises as though her wheelchair was on a race track, which made Sophia laugh. Lori hovered near by, scolding her son to slow down. "Someone might get hurt."

"She's already hurt," Carl said.

Daryl might have snorted at the boy's response, if Marcus had not distracted him by putting a hand on the back of Carol's vacated seat. "Finally come to say yer sorry?" Daryl asked. "For shootin' me?"

"I would," Marcus said, "but you robbed me and Darlene and left us for dead on that construction site."

"Y'all robbed us back, and we didn't leave ya for dead. Left ya ammo, guns, water, food. Knew ya'd be just fine. And look, yer alive."

"And then you convinced my fiancé to break up with me."

"What?"

"Darlene and I were doing just fine until you showed up back in her life and talked her into dumping me."

"Nobody talks Darlene into nothin'."

Carol had apparently left the dish washing to others, because she was now wiping down the next table over with a rag.

"Did you and Darlene use to be a thing?" Marcus asked.

Carol glanced up from her work.

"Marcus, leave him alone!" Darlene strutted over and came to a stop beside her former fiance. She jutted out a hip. "This ain't got shit to do with Daryl. Me and you just ain't right for each other."

"Well why in the hell did you just _now_ decide that? When _he_ showed up?"

"I didn't _just now_ decide it. Decided it six months ago! Didn't have the heart to tell ya is all."

"Six months ago?" Marcus half-hollered. "I asked you to marry me _five months_ ago and you said yes!"

Carol had completely stopped wiping the nearby table by now, and she began folding the rag.

"Well, I didn't want to hurt your feelings," Darlene said.

"You got some better prospect?" asked Marcus, glaring at Daryl.

"Do we have to do this here, baby, in front of everyone?"

"What the hell you still calling me baby for?"

"Old habits," Darlene said. "Sorry." She threw up her hand.

"I'm leaving right now," Marcus said. "I'm all packed up. I'm taking one of those bikes out there and going to Chicago to find my mother."

"Sun'll be settin' in an hour," Darlene said. "Be smart and wait 'til the mornin'."

"I'm done here," Marcus said. He jabbed a finger in her direction. "And to hell with you, Darlene. Good luck surviving without me." He pushed the chair in under the table, hard, until it slapped against it, and then he stormed off.

With a furrowed brow, Darlene watched him go.

Carol came over and dropped her washcloth on the table where Daryl sat. "Good for you, Darlene," she said. "There's no reason to stick with a man you don't love. I wish I'd learned that a lot sooner."

"I used to think - if you can't be with the one you love, then love the one you're with," Darlene told Carol. "But now I realize I don't have to be with no one at all. I'm pretty damn fantastic all on my own."

Carol laughed.

[*]

Three other men, who had lost their old people in the raid, decided to leave with Marcus. There was nothing for them in the nursing home anymore, they said, and they craved the open road.

Through the window of the common room, Daryl watched the men take four of the biker gang's motorcycles, leaving two behind. Marcus stabbed the solitary, remaining walker on his way out, thrusting the blade of his knife into its brain as though all his anger resided in the hilt.

"Maybe he _did_ shoot ya on purpose," Darlene said from beside him. "And I thought he was so sweet at heart, too."

The last motorcycle disappeared from sight. Daryl pulled the blind closed. "This world brings out the worst in people."

"Some people," Darlene told him. "But maybe it brings out the best in others. Like your not-girlfriend Carol? I been talkin' to her."

Daryl jerked his head back and glared at her. "Talkin' 'bout _what_?"

"Life. The Universe. _Men._ "

Daryl's eyes narrowed.

Darlene chuckled. "I think maybe you were right. Maybe she ain't as timid as I thought she was at first. I think there might be steel underneath that velvet. But someone's got to help her uncover it."

"Don't make Carol yer pet project, Darlene."

"Oh, I wasn't talkin' 'bout _me_ bringing it out of her _._ " She smiled, winked, and made her way over to one of the old people, saying, "It's time for your pills, Ms. Ramirez."

[*]

Daryl patted the earth down around Merle's hand with the back of the small shovel. Carol was so lithe, he didn't even hear her footsteps, though he sensed her presence on the roof. She lay the Cherokee rose he'd tucked behind Sophia's ear on top of the tiny grave. Faint, orange rays from the setting sun drew lines on the now crumpled, white petals.

"It worked for Sophia," Carol said softly. "She's healing. Maybe it will work for your brother. Wherever he is, maybe he's healing, too."

"Ya don't even like my brother."

"But you love him." She smiled. "And I like you well enough."

"'Cause I saved yer little girl?" he asked. He didn't think there was any other reason she _could_ like him.

"That didn't hurt." Her eyes flitted from the flower bed grave to his eyes. "How are you feeling?"

He felt a little weak after the long climb up all those flights of stairs to the rooftop garden, but he was much better than he had been this morning. "Me? Right as rain. How's Sophia?"

"Darlene's going to give her a pair of crutches tomorrow, start teaching her to walk around with those." Carol crossed her arms over herself. "What do you think of Rick's plan to go to the CDC?"

Daryl shrugged. "Ain't safe here. Someone else is gonna attack eventually. Maybe even more from that same gang, if'n there's more. Two escaped."

"But do you think the CDC has a cure?"

Daryl shook his head. "If they did, why the hell wouldn't they be usin' it? But them places – they's secure, right? Equipped for an outbreak? They probably got a shitload of storage food. Maybe they'll take us in. Then again, might just leave us bangin' on the door."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Carol admitted. "I mean, the government napalmed Atlanta. Why should we trust them?"

"I ain't never trusted the government. Even 'fore they napalmed Atlanta."

"Don't you think we should try to find a new camp instead? Somewhere near woods, where you can hunt and feed us? Somewhere higher up than the quarry was, somewhere far away from the city, where there are fewer walkers?"

Daryl thought of those cabins where he'd first hidden out with Merle. He'd felt like he was just sitting around waiting for the world to end back then, while Merle got high and watched porn on the portable DVD player. But with a small community, it might not feel like that. He'd hunt. He'd feed people. They'd have dinner together around the fire like they had in the quarry. Hell, maybe he'd even play cards with Carl and Sophia, even if he didn't much like those stupid kid games. It would be…well, it would be a home of sorts. "Think I know a place," he said.

"What place?" she asked.

He looked down at the flowerbed. "Place where yer father-in-law lived. That cabin I told ya 'bout, that me and Merle found, with all them photos of Sophia."

Carol paled.

"Don't have to be that one," he hastened. "Sophia don't have to know he lived there, or that he's dead." Sophia certainly didn't have to know Daryl had been the one to put an arrow in the old man's undead brain. "But there's a dozen and half cabins up there, spread out over four miles or so. They run on well water, straight from the source. Got electric pumps we can run with generators 'til the gas runs out. The we can hand pump the water, but not near as fast. There's a fresh water stream, too. Got fireplaces. Wood stoves for heatin' and cookin'. It's real high up, good ways from the city. Probably only walkers up there are the ones who was in the cabins when it started."

"Was anyone else living there when you were there?"

"Found one family. Might be gone by now." He didn't tell her that he and Merle had frightened that family and taken their bourbon and cigars. If they were still there, maybe Rick could play peacemaker.

"Sounds nice," Carol said. "Nicer than the quarry camp. Why'd you ever leave it?"

"Got bored," Daryl answered.

"And you won't get bored if you go back?"

He shrugged. "Won't be just me and Merle mo more. Be Rick. Lori. Carl. Sophia. Glenn. T-Dog when he gets back. Andrea, if he finds her. And..." He lifted his eyes shyly to hers. "You."

Carol smiled lightly and looked down at the flowerbed. Then she glanced back at the door leading down to the nursing home on the first floor of the building. "I should head back to Sophia. You gonna stay for awhile?"

Daryl shook his head. "Ain't nothin' to stay for. Ain't a funeral. Merle's still alive out there. Sure of it. Ain't no one can kill Merle but Merle."

"Where do you think he went?"

Daryl shrugged. "Kentucky maybe. To do the bourbon trail."

Carol laughed, then looked at him like she wasn't quite sure if he was serious or not.

"Don't matter anyhow," Daryl said. "Ain't like he came back for me." Darlene had to be wrong about Merle trying to drag him away from his "new friends," because if he had been, he would have come back for Daryl and taken him away with him.

"Maybe he assumed Rick or T-Dog would kill him if he came back," Carol suggested. "And he probably figured you'd just leave the camp without him. That you'd try to follow him."

"Yeah, well, I did try. Lost the trail."

"You don't need to be a follower, you know," Carol told him. "You could _lead_ us."

" _Rick's_ the leader of this group."

"You took charge when you found the RV missing, didn't you? You tracked all of us down. You saved us. That was _you_."

"Couldn't of done it without Rick. Or T-Dog or Glenn. I ain't no _leader!_ Don't _want_ that weight on my shoulders. Don't mind huntin' for y'all, but don't try to make it my job to run shit!"

"All right," Carol said softly, holding up her hands in a defensive gesture. "I just...I think maybe you underrate yourself. And I would feel a lot safer getting straight on the highway and going to those cabins than trying to fight our way downtown through thirty city blocks to the CDC. How are we even going to do that with Sophia?"

"Rick'll find a way."

"But you'll talk to him, won't you?" Carol asked. "You'll talk to Rick. About the cabins?"

Daryl nodded. "Yeah, sure. But I ain't makin' the final call."

He followed Carol back down the stairs, past twenty-nine floors of offices, to the nursing home. He had to pretend not to be in pain after the tenth floor down, but the side where he'd fallen on the glass was aching.

When they opened the interior door that led inside the nursing home, Darlene's voice echoed through the hallways. "Everyone! Rifles! Them bikers are back!"

Daryl had his crossbow on his back already. He'd started carrying it around ever since those bodies had turned. Quickly, he readied it. "Get Sophia and lock yerselves in a room!" he ordered Carol, and then he ran for the foyer, where Rick, Glenn, G, Darlene, and three other men were already lined up with rifles.

The roar of a motorcycle grew closer, and the first thing to come into the view, through the glass doors, beneath the brown boards that had been used to cover the shattered glass from the first break-in - was a familiar, dark black swastika. "Don't fire!" Daryl yelled. "Don't fire! It's one of ours!"


	18. Got Some Balls

Fingers slid off triggers. They watched through the glass as the motorcycle rolled to a stop.

"That's Merle's bike." Darlene lowered her rifle. "But ain't that yer friend T-Dog ridin' it?"

"Loaned it to 'em," Daryl said.

Darlene laughed. "Don't think Merle'd appreciate the irony. Who's the woman with him?"

"Andrea!" Rick shouted happily and made haste to open the door.

[*]

Later, in the common room, T-Dog and Andrea were met with embraces from all the quarry camp survivors except Daryl, who gave a general nod in Andrea's direction and then asked T-Dog, "Ya put any marks on my brother's bike?"

"There's a little walker blood," T-Dog told him. "But I'm sure it'll wash right off."

"Jesus, Daryl," Darlene said. "Try _welcome back_." Darlene gave T-Dog a quick hug, even though she'd only met him the once. "Glad you didn't die," she told him. "You seem like someone who can keep Daryl in line."

"I don't know about that," T-Dog replied with a smile. "Daryl doesn't seem like the type to color between the lines."

"Daryl don't color at all." Darlene smirked. "Though it might relax him and do him some good. You should color with the kids."

"Yeah, Mr. Dixon," Sophia said from her wheelchair. "They have adult coloring books here."

" _Adult_?" Daryl asked.

Carol snorted and covered her mouth and Daryl flushed from ear to bandaged ear.

"She means complicated coloring books for grown-ups," Glenn explained. "It's a thing. _Was_ a thing."

"How's your fiance?" T-Dog asked Darlene. "Marcus was it? Did he recover?"

"Yeah, but he ain't my fiance no more. He took off for Chicago."

Rick filled T-Dog in on the attack on the nursing home, and T-Dog told him, "Saw your pick-up parked out there when we turned in to the alley. Looks like someone busted the driver's side window and stole all the food and water."

"Shit!" Daryl cursed. "Why didn't y'all bring it in when we _got_ here?"

"Because there was a bit of a complication," Rick said dryly.

"You might recall that your ear got shot off," Lori said. "And that Sophia had a bone through her leg."

"Did you at least bring in that bag of guns and ammo?" T-Dog asked.

Rick nodded. "Had that on my back when we got here."

"Good. Because if we have to leave, we might have to shoot our way out." T-Dog nodded to the window.

Daryl went over and looked outside at the accumulating herd of walkers - there had to be at least thirty.

"I think the sound of the motorcycle drew them," T-Dog said apologetically.

They dragged an extra layer of furniture against the front and side doors of the nursing home and closed all the blinds, just in case. At least the windows were already reinforced with bars. "That's one advantage to city living," T-Dog said.

[*]

The kids went to bed early, guided by their mothers, while Rick, Glenn, T-Dog, and Darlene played cards in the common room. Andrea didn't join them. She was in a foul mood, and she sat by herself in the dining hall, eating nursing home food and sulking. She seemed furious that T-Dog had saved her and forced her to come with him. She'd seen her sister partially eaten by a walker. Dale, too. The camp had been consumed. She didn't see any reason to press on anymore.

At first, when Andrea realized she was out of bullets and couldn't get up the hill after the others, she'd run from the walkers in fear. But then anger and grief had propelled her, and finally, she'd simply stopped running. She lay down in a pile of leaves on the scratchy forest floor, closed her eyes tightly, and prayed for something to devour her while she slept. Let it go for my throat first, she hoped, so that the pain won't last long. But nothing came to nibble. The walkers had probably been drawn away from that area by Sophia's screams. The first thing to touch Andrea was T-Dog.

Andrea might have been the only one of those women with a gun. She might have a law school education. She might be the boss in any relationship she had with a man…But she was, Daryl thought, weaker than Carol. If Carol knew anything, it was how to keep on keeping on in the face of the world's abuse.

Daryl walked over to Andrea's table and set a box of 9 mm ammunition down in front of her food tray. "For yer Ladysmith. Since ya ran out."

"I don't think I want it," she said. "What's the point of living anymore?"

"What was ever the point of livin'?" Daryl asked. "It's just somethin' ya do, 'cause it's got to be done."

"That's pointless." She pushed her tray forward, which in turn shoved the box of ammo into the paper decoration on the table, a fluffy Easter egg.

"Well, ya probably saved them kids. Lori and Carol too. Ya held off them walkers long enough for 'em to get away. So maybe ya don't take it for you." He tapped the box of ammo. "Maybe ya take it for them."

Andrea pulled her handgun out of her waistband, rolled out the chamber, opened the box of ammo, and began roughly sliding in the bullets. She slammed the chamber shut. "There. Happy now?"

"Happy as a box of sunshine," Daryl said with a sneer. He left her there alone at the table and headed to his own bedroom.

On the way, he paused just outside the open door to Carol's room. She was reading to Sophia. He thought that was odd, reading to a girl who was more than old enough to read to herself. His own mother had stopped reading to him when he was about four, not because he could already read by then, but because she had begun drinking harder, and the stories always came out slurred. Daryl had corrected her once, about a story his nana had read him so many times before she'd died that he'd memorized it. Daryl's mama had thrown the book against the wall and yelled, "Fine! If mama's stories ain't good enough for ya, then read yer own damn stories!" That was the last time she'd ever read to him.

Daryl leaned his right shoulder against the wall and found himself listening to Carol. He was lulled by the gentle cadence of her voice. She could be one of those professional narrators for books on CDs, he thought. That was, she _could_ have been, in the old world. He found himself closing his eyes as he listened, and he must have nodded off standing up, because the click of the door awoke him. He snorted and stumbled back a step.

"Were you asleep?" Carol asked him.

"No, ma'am," he lied, embarrassed to be found dozing outside her door.

"Please don't call me ma'am. It makes me feel so old."

Daryl hadn't even realized he _had_ called her ma'am. He'd been forced to call teachers ma'am in school, and when he was working, he'd always called the female customers ma'am. But it wasn't something he'd typically said outside of work or school. "Ain't nothin' but a sign of respect. Don't mean yer old. Called my twenty-one-year old 4th grade teacher ma'am."

"When you were nine or ten. I bet she was old _to you_."

"She was..." He stopped. He was about to say she was hot, but that didn't seem appropriate somehow. "Young."

Carol smiled. "Well I'm not. I'm almost forty-three."

"Well I'm thirty-eight. Or thirty-seven. Maybe thirty-nine. Somethin' like that."

"You don't keep track?" she asked.

"What for?"

She chuckled. "I don't know. So you can celebrate your birthday?"

"Cain't 'member the last time I celebrated a birthday." He could, actually. He was twenty-one and Merle had taken him to a strip club. He'd felt awkward as hell - embarrassed, uncomfortable, and on-display, and he'd just wanted to leave, but Merle kept buying him lap dances. He'd never understood why so many men got off on women who were only paid to pretend to like them. It was like those men _believed_ the act, even though they'd just paid for it. Daryl could never suspend his disbelief, and he was turned off quickly.

"Well, I'd throw you a party, but I don't even know where we'll be in a week. The CDC?" she asked. "Or the cabins?"

"Ain't my call."

"But you told Rick about the cabins?"

"Not yet." Her confidence in him bothered him. Why did she seem to think he had some major influence around here? "I'll get to it when I get to it!" He thrust himself off the wall. "Ya must of nagged Ed to no end." He'd walked three steps past her when he realized what an awful thing that was to say. Ed had probably beat her and told her she deserved it for her nagging. He stopped and turned. "Sorry," he said. "Yer just worried 'bout Sophia. 'Bout tryin' to get her through the city."

"I am."

"I'll talk to Rick."

"Thank you," she said, hugging herself.

"But ya know it ain't my call."

She nodded and began walking down the hall.

"Where ya goin'?" he called after her. "Ya ain't leavin' yer little girl alone in that room, are ya? Might wake up and get scared." As a boy, Daryl had woken up too many nights to find the cabin completely empty.

Carol turned. "I'm going to the common room to get a book to read, and then I'm coming right back. I'm not ready for bed this early, so I'm going to read by flashlight."

Daryl waited by Sophia's door until he saw Carol return, rounding the corner of the hall with a book in her hand. She smiled to see him still there, and he ducked his head and scurried off.

[*]

The next morning, Sophia was hobbling around on crutches. "I'm getting the hang of it, Mr. Dixon!" she told Daryl when he passed her as he walked through the dining room. "I'm hopping just like a toad!"

"Ya ain't ugly enough to be a toad," he told her.

Sophia seemed to think about that, as though she wasn't quite sure whether it was an insult or a compliment. Then she asked, "Why's your bandage still on? Around your head?" She looked down at her knee. "Ms. Darlene took mine off already."

Sophia was in a cumbersome metal splint, and Daryl could see where Darlene had grafted a piece of biker's skin over the formerly exposed bone. Darlene had done a prettier job of sewing on that skin than she had Daryl's ear, but it was obviously not a match in shade, and the stitches were noticeable. Yet Sophia clearly didn't care. It didn't seem to bother her one wit. She followed his gaze and said, "Carl says I'm like a bionic Frankenstein. Isn't that cool? I should have superpowers."

He felt suddenly vain and silly for hiding his own ear. "Take my bandage off," he muttered. He returned to his room, where he unwrapped the white gauze and threw it in the trashcan. When he came back out to the dining room, Sophia was sitting in a chair and Carl was playing with her crutches by holding them beneath his armpits, balancing on them, and trying to swing both legs. Neither kid had anything to say about his ear.

Next, Daryl went to the common room, where he joined Rick, Glenn, and T-Dog around a circular table. Only two old people lingered in the room, but the men didn't pay them much mind as they discussed their next move. One was an old woman who was slumped over like a toddler, asleep in her wheelchair. The other was an old man who just sat nodding and smiling and saying, "That's right, yes, that's right" over and over. Christ it was embarrassing. A Dixon man would never let himself get that far gone. He'd make sure he died in a bar fight first, or a hunting accident, or at least have the dignity to drink himself to death.

"I'm with Daryl," T-Dog said. "This cabin thing sounds like a pretty good plan to me."

Glenn shook his head. "I'm with Rick. We should at least check out the CDC first. What if we learn something important? Something we can do to fight this thing if we ever get bit?"

"Carol wants to go to the cabins," Daryl said.

"Lori will agree with me," Rick said. "About the CDC. The kids don't get a vote. So I guess it's down to Andrea. Is that what you want? For _her_ to be the tie-breaker? She seems a little unstable right now."

"What about everyone else here?" Glenn asked. "Will any of them be coming with us? Will Darlene?"

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" T-Dog asked with an amused smirk.

"Just...I think she's probably a good shot is all," Glenn said. "And she knows how to patch people up."

Rick stood. "Well, let's go gather everyone and ask."

They ended up meeting in the dining room with the whole quarry group and the nursing home camp, except for the old ones and Sophia and Carl, who were sent to the common room - childhood and second childhood, left out of the discussion.

"I say we check out the CDC," Andrea said. "If they're working on a cure there...if we can learn anything, if we can _do_ anything, then maybe Amy's death won't have been in vain."

Carol's eyes grayed with irritation. "And how do we get Sophia through all those walkers downtown? She's on crutches. She can't run if we need to."

"We can take a wheelchair," Andrea said. "Daryl and T-Dog will clear the way."

Carol shook her head. She glanced at Daryl, as though expecting something of him. It annoyed him, her expectations. He wasn't fucking Moses. He wasn't going to be leading anyone to the Promised Land.

He looked away from her and at Rick. "Think the CDC's a waste of time. But if it's what ya decide...then we _all_ go. Got to keep the group together. Safety in numbers."

"I think it's what we should do," Rick said. "We have to at least _try_."

"Fine," Daryl told him, and he could almost hear Carol sigh. "But if it don't pan out, we head straight for the cabins from there. _Right_?"

Rick nodded. "And the rest of you? Do any of you want to come with us?"

None of the men from the nursing home wanted to join Rick's group. The ones who didn't want to stay had already left with Marcus. "We can't easily get the old people through the city," G said, "and we're all family here now. We'll stay as long as we can, and, if it comes to it, we'll fight our way out."

"I want to stay and help nurse these people," Darlene told G, "I do. But the problem is, I ain't a dumb ass. And I ain't suicidal. I thought I could stay here before them bikers came. Before Emilio got devoured. Before this other herd of walkers started millin' 'round. It just ain't safe. I'm sorry, G, but I guess I just ain't a city girl at heart."

"CDC's in the city," G said.

"Don't think they're gonna find shit at the CDC," Darlene replied. "I want to go with 'em so as I can go on to the cabins after they see there ain't nothin' there. I'm sorry."

G shook his head. "Don't be. You've already done so much to help us. Go. Go with your people."

"I don't think y'all should stay here either," Darlene told him.

"And what _should_ we do?" G asked. "Leave the old ones to die?"

"Gonna die soon anyhow," Daryl said. "Ain't exactly spring chickens."

G narrowed his eyes at him and stepped toward him. He held Daryl's eyes fiercely. "I guess you can't help it if you didn't grow up in a culture where you were taught to respect your elders."

"My elders wouldn't of wanted this shit," Daryl spat. "Sittin' 'round in wheelchairs, pissin' themselves, bringin' their kids and grandkids down with 'em while they just wait to die. They'd of rolled themselves out them damn doors by now." He swept his arm toward the front door. "And gone down fightin'."

G marched closer and practically bumped his chest against Daryl's chest. "Are you insulting _mi abuelo_ now?"

"Boys!" Darlene insisted. "Cut that shit out!"

G stepped back, his eyes still holding Daryl's.

"You do what ya gotta do," Daryl told him. "Ya ain't no coward, that's for damn sure. Ya wanna die for these old folk, that's yer choice. Just sayin' it's suicide is all."

"Is it?" G asked. "Suicide? To defend the weak? Why did you rescue Sophia then? Risk your life to find her and bring her here? Hmmm?"

"Sophia's just a damn kid!" Daryl barked. "She ain't lived her life! Like I said, do what ya gotta do. Gave ya an invitation." He swiped his hand out in G's direction as if he was holding a letter in his fingers. "Ya ain't got to take it."

"Good, because we're not."

"Now that we've established all that," Darlene said, "can we talk about y'all lettin' us take a few medicines, G? Gonna need some antibiotic and we could use a first aid kit at least. And Rick did give y'all them guns and ammo."

G nodded. "We'll work something out."

[*]

They decided to wait until the morning in hope that the herd of walkers would have dispersed. There were too many of them lingering near the motorcycles and around the end of the blocked-off alley where they'd parked the pick-up.

Daryl was adjusting the strings of his bow alone at one of the dining room tables that afternoon when Carol yanked out the chair across from him and sat down. "You promised you were going to talk to Rick."

"I _did."_ Daryl didn't look up from the bow. "He just aint' agreed."

"You didn't push very hard for the cabins."

Daryl glared at her. "Yeah, well neither did you. Ya want to convince him so bad, why don't _you_ talk to him yer own damn self?"

"Rick's not going to listen to _me_. Why would anyone listen to me? I don't...I don't have any skills."

"What the hell ya mean ya ain't got no skills? Ya can cook. Sew. And ya came up with a system for the washin' back in the quarry." He pinched his finger in the bow, cursed, and sucked on the tip.

"Those aren't _survival_ skills."

"Hell they ain't. Most women these days, hell, they don't know how to put food on the table less'n it comes prepackaged and ready to microwave. Don't know how to wash nothin' without a machine. And we got to eat. Cain't walk 'round naked."

"I don't think that's going to give my opinion any weight, though, when it comes to where we should go. But if you - "

"- I told him what I thought!" Daryl pushed the bow forward a little. "He's got a hard on for the CDC. That's just the way it is. Maybe he's right. Maybe we'll find somethin'. If'n we don't, it's on to the cabins. You and Sophia don't even need to get out the truck 'till we're at the doors and we got that shit open. So don't worry 'bout it no more."

Carol sighed. She nodded. "Okay." When she stood up, he concentrated on his bow.

[*]

The walkers were still bumping around outside in the morning. So the next step was figuring out how to get through them to the pick-up.

"Can we all _fit_ in the pick-up?" Andrea asked. "Especially since Sophia needs to keep her leg stretched out?"

"I'm takin' Merle's bike," Daryl said.

"I can snag one of them bikes from the gang that shot us up," Darlene said. "T-Dog can take the other one. Carol can ride on the back of Daryl's bike. That'll leave just four adults and two kids in the pick-up."

"I should really be with my daughter in the pick-up," Carol said, and although Daryl agreed the mother should be with her daughter, he also wondered if she just didn't want her arms around a grubby redneck.

"Then Andrea can ride with Daryl," Darlene suggested.

"Why don't I ride with T-Dog?" Andrea said.

"Poor Daryl," Darlene shot a mock frown his way. "Ain't none of y'all want to ride with 'em?"

"I will!" Carl Grimes exclaimed.

"No," Lori said. "Absolutely not."

"Don't _want_ no one to ride with me!" Daryl barked.

"I can ride in the bed of the pick-up," Glenn said. "In fact, I have a plan." He proposed walking out of a side door of the nursing home with a boom box, playing loud music, and drawing off the walkers after him in a pack. He'd run if he had to. He was confident he could easily outrun them. Meanwhile, the rest would make their way to the pick-up, grab the bikes, and start driving. Glenn would catch up with them, on foot, around another alleyway, and leap in the bed of the pick-up.

"Like I said," Daryl told him, "ya got some balls for a….Ya just got some balls, kid."


	19. Wine and Cheese, Boo-yah!

Darlene roared up beside Daryl on her freshly looted motorcycle and leaned in to shout, "Sorry! I _tried_ to get ya a little hug-action from your not-girlfriend. But she wasn't bitin'."

"Shut up!" Daryl shouted. He shot ahead of her on Merle's bike and past the pick-up, where Sophia waved out the window to him. Glenn's plan had worked, and they were now past the walkers around the nursing home, each safely on or in a vehicle, and headed for the CDC.

Daryl swerved past T-Dog and Andrea on the other looted bike, but he still couldn't get away from Darlene. She roared around the pick-up and T-Dog, and then she kept pace with Daryl.

Daryl shot forward and cut her off, and then she shot around him, passed him, and cut him off. So Daryl slowed down, dramatically, until both T-Dog and the pick-up were past him, and then he took up the rear. From the bed of the pick-up, Glenn grinned and shouted, "Darlene's faster than – " Suddenly, his mouth froze. He pointed at the herd of walkers that had begun spilling out of a building and lurching after them. Daryl glanced over his shoulder, shot forward, and yelled through the broken driver's-side window at Rick, "Pick up the pace! We got walkers."

They easily outpaced the herd, but then they reached a street blocked enough by abandoned cars that the pick-up couldn't get through or around. T-Dog and Daryl dismounted their bikes. T-Dog jerked open the door of a car and Daryl lunged forward to stab the walker trapped inside before yanking out the body. When the car wouldn't start, Darlene popped it in neutral and steered it while Daryl and T-Dog pushed it out of the way.

Darlene hopped out while it was still rolling, and it thudded against another car. "You sure are strong." She squeezed T-Dog's bicep, and he grinned. From the bed of the pick-up, Glenn frowned.

That cleared enough space for the pick-up to get through, but by now more walkers had spilled out into the streets and were heading straight for them. Andrea, who was standing near the motorcycle she was riding with T-Dog, drew her pistol.

"Don't," Daryl insisted, striding past her. "Waste of ammo." He shot his crossbow at the closest walker, and while he recovered his arrow, the others took off. He got back on Merle's bike jut as a walker was reaching for him. The creature's decaying hand slipped off his shoulder as he flew forward down the street.

[*]

They reached the CDC after taking two detours to avoid large, walker-infested areas, only to find it a crumpled mass of shattered glass, fallen brick, and ash. It looked as though the building had been blown up underground from within.

"Ya think it had a self-destruct button?" Darlene asked.

T-Dog chuckled. "This isn't a movie. I don't think government buildings have self-destruct buttons."

"Bet the military blew it up," Daryl said.

"Hell, maybe the CDC started this whole damn epidemic," Darlene said. "Let somethin' awful get loose from the lab."

T-Dog shook his head. "You rednecks _do_ love your conspiracy theories."

"Well, what's your analysis, Sherlock?" Darlene asked him.

"I like to think of myself as more of a Shaft type," T-Dog said.

Darlene rolled her eyes. "Well, one thing's for damn sure," she said. "The Atlanta CDC don't have a cure."

Through the open window of the pick-up, Daryl asked Rick, "Move on to the cabins now?"

"How long will it take us to get there?"

"Depends on traffic," and by that Daryl of course meant walker traffic and roads blocked by abandoned cars. "Two days maybe."

"So we need to find a safe place to stop tonight."

"Yeah."

Rick suddenly yanked his gun from his holster. Daryl, his finger already on the trigger of his crossbow, whirled to see what Rick saw. He pulled and the arrow flew. Behind the walker he'd just killed were a dozen more coming. Sophia's gasp of fear drifted from the backseat and through the open driver's side window. "Get rollin'!" Daryl yelled.

The pick-up peeled off. Darlene shot off on her motorcycle. It took T-Dog and Andrea a little longer to get situated, but Daryl held off the walkers while they did, and then he leaped back on Merle's bike.

As Daryl passed the pick-up, Carol shook her head at him, as though to say – I told you we shouldn't have bothered with the CDC.

[*]

It required a bit of work, some backtracking, ten rounds of ammunition, and one broken-off arrow, but they made it out of the city by sunset. On the outskirts, they found a two-story motel that appeared to have been temporarily closed-down for some internal renovations at the time of the Turn, and therefore it was uninhabited except for a few walkers who had once been painters and repairmen.

Darlene and Andrea stood guard over Carol, Lori, and the kids with pistol and rifle while the men entered the lobby. With knives, arrows, and an axe, as quietly as possible, they checked every room and cleared the first floor. All of the doors were missing their handles, as the locks were apparently being switched out. None of them latched fully, and so they needed only to kick against the wood to send the doors slamming open to reveal any walkers inside. Daryl was becoming a machine with the crossbow, having cut his arrow-recovery time in half by the end of the project, and Glenn was becoming far less skittish about sliding his knife into walker's brains. They dragged the bodies - fifteen in all - out of a side door and left them piled by the construction dumpster. There might be more walkers on the second-story, but as the staircases were external and there was no way the walkers could come down from the inside, the men didn't bother going up there.

When Rick gave the "All clear!", they unloaded the pick-up of their personal packs and the large medicine bag G had given Darlene. Rick duct taped two pieces of cardboard from the dumpster over the broken driver's side window. Sophia hobbled in on crutches. Glenn locked the front door and they dragged furniture from the lobby to blockade it. The exits couldn't be opened or easily busted through from the outside, so they left those alone, but they boarded up the lower, weaker windows using the tools and plywood the workmen had left behind.

T-Dog and Glenn took a luggage cart and collected a dozen, free-standing battery-operated work lights from among the workmen's things. They put one each in the men's and women's bathrooms in the lobby. "The toilets might each still flush once," Rick said. "But if it's yellow let it mellow."

"Ewww…" Sophia crinkled her nose, and Daryl was surprised such a thing could still disgust her, after all she'd been through. Kids were weird.

"And don't forget to use the hand sanitizer in there," Lori warned Carl. The boy rolled his eyes, but only once his mother had turned away.

They claimed seven interior rooms, all along the same hallway, which backed to the lobby and so had no windows that needed boarding up. They brought a work-light into each room and dropped their packs. The beds were completely stripped, but there were linens in the closets. After making their beds, they met again in the hallway to confer.

"Being in this empty motel reminds me of _The Shining_ ," Glenn said.

"Oh!" Darlene exclaimed. "Now why would you go and say that! Now I'm gonna feel like I'm livin' in a horror movie!"

"We _are_ living in horror movie," T-Dog told her.

"Mom, can Sophia and I have a sleep over tonight?" Carl asked. "Please!"

"No," Lori said. "We aren't going to be having any mixed-gender sleepovers, Carl. Absolutely – "

"- I don't know," Rick interrupted her. "If Carol doesn't mind, why doesn't Carl sleep in her room?"

"What?" Lori asked.

That poor man wanted to get laid something awful, Daryl thought. And Rick wanted to do it without having to stay quiet and buried under the covers so as not to wake the kid.

Rick looked at Lori pointedly. " _Carl_ could sleep in _Carol's_ room."

Lori was _not_ taking the hint. But Carol did. "Carl's more than welcome to sleep over in our room," she said. "There's two beds in there. Sophia and I can sleep in one and Carl can sleep in the other. It'll be fine."

"I appreciate that, Carol," Lori told her. "But I really do think Carl should stay with us."

Both Rick and Carl's faces fell.

Sophia's stomach growled, so loudly that it sounded like a lonely bear. They hadn't eaten since breakfast.

"See if we can rustle up some grub," Daryl said as he headed down the hall toward the continental breakfast room.

[*]

Carol was peeved that they had wasted so much time on that wild goose chase to the CDC. Rick was too much of an optimist, she thought. He couldn't see how terrible the world was, even now. He'd wasted his time going back for Merle, too, and put lives at risk to rescue a man that, frankly, they were all safer without. What had Rick expected to find at the CDC, anyway? The government, rising like a messiah from some bureaucratic vault?

In one way, at least, this world was no different than the last one – you couldn't rely on the government to save you from the ugliness that surrounded you. The police had been at Carol's doorstep a total of three times in the first ten years of her marriage. Twice they'd only taken reports. Once they'd taken Ed, but he'd come back the next morning angrier than ever. Carol feared that if she tried to leave him, he'd find a way to take Sophia from her, or that, at best, she and her daughter would end up jostled from shelter to shelter, scraping by, subsisting meal to meal, and living the kind of nomadic existence that…well…that they were living now, as a matter of fact. Was this really a better life than the one she had once given Sophia? Carol had chosen to appease her husband, to bear all the brunt of his anger herself, and to find a way to live with him. She'd imagined, at the time, that she was sacrificing herself for her daughter – for Sophia's stability, a roof over her head, food on the table, and no possibility of Ed ever having her to himself.

But Ed was gone now, and Carol was free of his looming shadow. She felt a small sliver of pride to think that she had finally walked away from him before he died. She'd taken the tent Daryl had offered.

Now, she followed Daryl and the others to the breakfast room, where T-Dog set up one of the larger battery-operated work lights. The tables were covered in white drop cloths, and the walls had been half painted. Brushes, ladders, and paint cans still littered the area. Carol immediately busied herself with searching the cabinets for food, but they were empty except for filters, coffee cups, wine glasses, and juice glasses. She suspected they had probably cleared out the food when they shut down the motel for the renovations, but she'd thought it was worth a try.

Glenn picked up a plastic holder that sat on the breakfast counter and read the flyer inside. "They used to have a nightly wine and cheese," he said.

"At a _motel_?" Lori asked.

Sometimes Carol just wanted to smack Lori. While Rick worried her with his unrealistic optimism, Lori, she thought, could see the dark side of a rainbow. Lori had been a stay-at-home mom like Carol herself. Their children were about the same age. They ought to find a lot of common ground, but Carol felt like she almost had more in common with _Daryl_ than she did with this helicoptering soccer mom who, though she'd grown up in the middle class, sometimes seemed to have the airs of a debutante. Maybe Carol was just jealous – jealous that Lori – even though she didn't cook that well, even though she didn't always get all the soap out of the laundry, even though she nagged Rick over petty things, even though she ignored his hints about an evening of uninhibited sex – the woman _still_ had a faithful, gentle, respectful husband who loved her and treated her well.

"Where do you think they kept the wine?" T-Dog wondered.

"Maybe in here." Carol rapped her knuckles against what looked to be the solid door of a storage closet. "I think it's the pantry. But it's locked. Can someone open this?"

"I bet Darlene can!" Glenn said.

"Sure, honey," Darlene replied. She pulled some tool out of the back of her jeans and sprung the door open within a couple minutes.

The pantry was largely stocked with paper products, but it also had a number of nonperishable food items - several large unopened bags of cereal, tiny individual packages of jelly and butter, jars of peanut butter, coffee grounds, bottles of apple and cranberry juice, Sunny Delight, canned peaches and pears, and, on the bottom shelf, about a dozen bottles of wine, several boxes of crackers, squeezable cheese spread, and a few packages of summer sausages that didn't require refrigeration.

"Cheese whiz," Lori said. "For a wine and cheese. And the wine's Yellow Tail. I think that's eight dollars a bottle."

Carol wonder what kind of credit card debt Lori had racked up in the old world if she was too good for an $8 bottle of wine. The woman hadn't had a job, there was the son to support, and cops didn't make that much money. Carol knew how to make productive use of coupons, to bargain and to thrift shop, to repair Ed's clothes and make Sophia's herself, and she could find a way to reuse almost anything. An $8 bottle of wine was an unexpected luxury on a Friday night when Ed was out doing whatever it was Ed did.

"Shit, that's more than my mama paid for a whole damn _box_ of wine!" Daryl exclaimed.

Carol snorted and Daryl glowered at her, but she had no way of telling him she was laughing at Lori and not _him_.

T-Dog clapped his hands together. "We are dining in style tonight!"

Darlene smiled. "I love how cheerful you are." She turned to Daryl. "You could learn something from T-Dog, you know."

Carol couldn't quite figure out what Darlene was to Daryl. Darlene treated him with the same teasing familiarity you might treat a little brother, but they weren't family. Daryl didn't even call her his "friend." The most he'd said was "old neighbor," but Carol supposed maybe neighors were a little bit like family in the isolated mountains where he'd grown up. Carol envied Darlene her competence with a gun and her coolness in an emergency, but most of all she envied the woman her easy self-confidence.

"Be cheerful once we get a few of them bottles open," Daryl said.

They ripped the drop cloths off of two of the rectangular tables, shoved them together, and made themselves a banquet. Daryl sat off to the side, on top of one of the service counters, and drank straight out of his own private bottle of red wine. He still seemed reluctant to claim his rightful place among the group, a place Carol believed he had more than earned. "There's still a chair," she said, gesturing to the open chair between Carl and T-Dog, but Daryl shook his head.

Everyone else drank from wine glasses. Carl asked for a sip, which Lori refused him.

"They do it in France," Carol reasoned, and she took one of the bottles and poured Sophia just half an ounce before topping off her own glass again. She was excited to be drinking openly with happy faces. Ed had never allowed her to drink, so she had only had wine when she knew he was going to be out all night, and then she would hide the evidence deep in the trash.

"We're not in France." Lori looked at Sophia's glass.

Carol felt instantly judged. She was certain Lori thought she was a bad mother – for having been married to Ed (and there at least Lori had a point), but also for letting Sophia play with toads, or roam a bit out of her sight when they were in a secured area, or use a sharp knife to help her chop vegetables.

"O come on!" Daryl cried, and Carol felt a smug twinge of satisfaction. "Let 'em!"

Lori turned her eyes warily to the counter top where Daryl sat. Her disdain for Daryl had been apparent from the first day he rolled into camp, and it didn't help that Rick had risked himself to return to Atlanta for Daryl's brother.

"We have a safe place to sleep tonight," Rick reasoned. "And this is a banquet! One little sip isn't going to hurt."

Lori relented and poured the boy half an ounce. Carl sipped it, contorted his face, and said, "Ewwwwww!" Everyone laughed, even Lori.

Sophia tried hers next. She puckered her lips, smacked her tongue like you might when something was tart, and then took another little sip. And another. "Not bad," she said, and this time everyone laughed even louder.

"Now you're in for it, Carol!" Andrea warned her. Even _Andrea_ was laughing. The wine had cut through her gloom, apparently. Maybe she wanted to live now, at least long enough to eat summer sausage and get buzzed. Carol didn't understand her suicidal funk, but maybe that was because she herself had a daughter to protect. Were she alone in this world, perhaps she wouldn't see any point in pressing on either. But she didn't think so. She thought her instinct to survive was somewhere deep down inside. It couldn't be ignored, even if all she had to defend herself with was an iron.

Daryl squeezed cheese whiz straight into his mouth and swallowed it down with a satisfied "Mhmmmm!"

Carl's eyes got big and he grabbed a can, shook it, and began to do the same thing, but Lori grabbed it out of his hands. "That's really gross, Carl," she said.

"Daryl did it."

"Well _Daryl_ is not the best example of etiquette. At least squeeze it on a cracker."

Carl did, and then he popped the cracker in his mouth.

"What the hell's on these crackers?" Daryl asked, drawing one out from a box that said, simply, _Fancy Crackers_.

"Seeds and cracked pepper," Carol told him.

Daryl flicked off what he could of the little flecks before biting into it.

"You need to expand your pallet," Carol teased.

"Y'all need to shrink yours," Daryl replied. "Got to be willin' to eat anythin' in this world." He squeezed more cheese whiz in his mouth.

"Says the man who won't eat a cracker just because it's fancy!" Glenn seemed a bit more buzzed than the others, even though he'd only had about two glasses of wine. He laughed hard.

Daryl _smiled,_ or at least his lips got as close to a smile as Carol had ever seen them reach. He leaned forward and said, "Keep drinking, little man! I want to see how red your face can get!"

Glenn laughed, shook his head, and took another sip while Daryl guzzled from his own bottle.

"Cheers!" T-Dog raised his glass and clanked Darlene's with it. Then he clanked everyone else's too.

"Boo-yah!" Daryl thrust his bottle in T-Dog's general direction in a violent, empty-air toast before bringing it back to his lips, only to pull it away with a dissatisfied look, turn it upside down, and watch a single drop drip to the floor.


	20. Wrong Room

Daryl was feeling mighty relaxed as Darlene opened another bottle of wine and used it to top off everyone's glass with two ounces each. Lori put a hand over the opening of hers to signal that she was done, but Darlene didn't see it in time. A splash of red wine oozed onto her sparkly engagement ring. Lori sighed, grabbed a napkin, and began wiping it off.

"Sorrrry!" Darlene laughed. She slid the half empty bottle to the end of the table for Daryl. He seized it and took it back to his private throne on the counter top and promptly began throwing it back.

Lori rose and said, "I think it's time to be getting to bed."

Rick made a move to linger with the others by picking up his glass, sipping from it, and generally acting as though he thought Lori was speaking only for herself. But a single glare from his wife was followed by the clink of his glass against the table. "See y'all in the morning," he mumbled, waving to them as he rose and obediently tripped after Lori and Carl.

Daryl watched the poor bastard follow his wife like a puppet on a string. When Rick had disappeared from the breakfast room, Daryl made the sound of a whip cracking and flicked his wrist.

"That's mean," Carol said, but then she chuckled. Surprised by the sound, Daryl stared right at her. The woman looked so damn different when she laughed. Her eyes got all sparkly and pretty. "Oh, Good Lord," Carol said. "I need to stop drinking."

Sophia smiled. "You only had two glasses, Mom."

"She did?" Darlene looked with some surprise at the empty bottles resting on the table. "And the kids ain't really had _any_..."

Carol stood up. "Come on, Sophia, let's get you to bed."

"I'll walk with you," Andrea told her, rising from the table. Andrea was unsteady on her feet, so Carol put an arm around her waist as they headed off. Andrea hobbled out about as gracefully as Sophia on her crutches.

"Oh well," Darlene said. "Still plenty left." She opened yet another bottle of wine and topped off three glasses, a little sloppily, spilling some on the table. Then she pushed the bottle over to Daryl. He slid off the counter to get it, found himself more unsteady on his feet than he'd anticipated, and plopped down in a chair at the table. He seized the bottle by its neck.

Glenn's head bobbed as he looked at the empty bottles and asked, "Wait. How many glasses are in a bottle?"

"The way Darlene pours?" T-Dog said. "Who knows?"

"There's six...seven...eight...empty bottles there. Carol only had..." Glenn pushed back from the table. "I think I'm going to be sick." He put a hand on his stomach and ran off.

"Poor, sweet thing," said Darlene, watching Glenn go. "He needs a girlfriend."

"He wants _you_ to be his girlfriend," T-Dog told her. "Isn't that obvious enough?"

"Awww…" Darlene said, like a woman might say upon seeing a very cute baby animal. "Well that certainly ain't gonna happen."

T-Dog laughed.

"He needs a college girl," Darlene said. She slapped her hands palm down on the table. "We got to find him a college girl on the way to the cabins!"

T-Dog started singing, "Matchmaker, matchmaker, send me a dream..."

Darlene joined in, "Make him the cutest, you've ever seen..."

"Cut that shit out!" Daryl shouted.

"Daryl," Darlene said. "Ya go from happy drunk to mean drunk in one glass." She shook her head. "I'm not gonna stick around and watch you get shitfaced." She glanced at T-Dog. "Walk me back?"

T-Dog grinned, nodded, and stood.

"Fine!" Daryl called after them when they were rounding the corner. "Have my own damn party! Alone! Like I like it!"

He drank the rest of the wine in the bottle, ate a few more fancy crackers, cursed at the cracked pepper on them, spooned some peanut butter into his mouth, and finished off Glenn's untouched glass. Then he headed to bed, stumbling his way through the lobby to the hallway.

When he attempted to round the corner, Daryl slammed his forehead against the wall. "Motherfucker!" he yelled and then whispered to himself, "Shhhh! People are sleepin'!" He shook off the pain, eased his way carefully around the corner of the wall, and concentrated very intensely on walking the next twenty-five steps.

Daryl pushed open the door he _thought_ led to his own room, but was confused to find candles flickering on the nightstands between the two twin beds. He hadn't left any candles burning, had he?

"Daryl, get the fuck out!" Darlene shouted.

He saw a flash of white on black as T-Dog yanked the sheets up over Darlene's bare ass and back. Daryl blinked. What had happened to Darlene's battery-powered work light? Why did she have to light candles? And what was T-Dog doing in her room? More to the point, why was Darlene sitting _on top_ of T-Dog? What the hell was going on in here?

"Oh!" he exclaimed as the revelation penetrated his wine-clouded brain.

"Out! Now!" T-Dog barked.

"Oh...oh ho ho hah!" Daryl laughed. "Hope yer usin' a rubber! Ya don't know where she's been!"

"Fuck off, Daryl!" Darlene shouted.

"At least _someone's_ gettin' some tonight!" Daryl shouted. "Rick sure as shit ain't."

T-Dog lifted Darlene by her hips and set her beside himself in the bed. He seemed as if he was about to climb out naked and charge Daryl like a football player going in for a serious tackle.

Daryl held up a hand. "Leavin'! Leavin'!" He sputter-laughed his way out of the room and had to pull the door shut by putting a finger in the hole where the handle used to be. It bounced in the frame and opened partway again, but he left it like that.

He knew he was two doors down from Darlene's room, so he counted one...two...pushed the door open, and stumbled his way to the bed. The mattress bounced like a tiny ocean wave when he sat on the edge. After wrestling off his boots, Daryl slid under the covers and promptly passed out.

His counting would have worked, too, if the couple hadn't actually been in _T-Dog's_ room.

So Daryl was more than a little surprised when, some time later, a light flashed on and he opened his eyes to find himself staring down the barrel of a wavering, black, 9 mm handgun. From behind the shaky barrel peered a pair of nervous, blue eyes. "What are you doing in my bed?" Carol asked.

Daryl wasn't drunk anymore - he must have slept a few hours - but his head sure throbbed, and his stomach felt a little off. "Careful where ya point that thing," he hissed quietly. "Ya ain't got control of it."

The gun shook.

In the flick of a wrist, Daryl snatched it by the barrel and disarmed Carol.

She gasped at his speed, or maybe at finding herself weaponless, and stood up straight from where she'd been bent over him. "Why are you _here_?"

"Sorry." He pulled himself into a sitting position. Carol was standing at the side of the bed, half blocking Sophia in the other bed. Despite the sudden, bright glare from the battery-backed work light, the little girl was still sleeping hard. "Thought this was my room." Daryl threw off the blanket. "Stumbled in. Passed out. Didn't even know ya was in this bed. Didn't mean to scare ya." He slid out of bed and stood. "Didn't touch ya! I swear. Gonna get goin'. Right now." He stepped into his right boot.

Carol wasn't wearing any pants. A long, dark red sports jersey stretched to just above her knees. He loved it when women wore jerseys. He didn't know why. Something about it just turned him on. So he concentrated on getting his boots on instead of looking at where the v-neck of the jersey dipped and revealed the barest hint of cleavage.

"Ya believe me?" he asked, thinking she probably didn't. She probably thought he'd crawled in and was going to try to have sex with her, or that he'd fondled her in her sleep, or done something equally despicable and pervy.

"Of course. I'm sorry about pointing a gun in your face. It's just...I didn't know what was going on. I rolled over in my sleep and landed on you. It really startled me."

"But ya _do_ believe me?"

"Why wouldn't I? I've never seen you make a pass at _any_ woman in the camp. I'm sure you wouldn't do it to _me_. I'd probably be the _last_ woman to interest you."

Now why in the hell would she say that? He looked at her curiously as he wiggled his foot into his left boot. Ed had probably told her she wasn't pretty. But she was.

"Can I have my gun back now?" Carol asked.

Daryl looked at the gun he still held in his right hand. "Where'd ya get this?"

"I took it from the gun bag when Rick left it in the lobby. I _need_ something. I was defenseless when our camp was overrun. I had to use an iron just to get me and Sophia out. And then, in the woods, I couldn't save my own daughter." She looked back at Sophia, who was sleeping on her back, probably because the splint prevented her from easily rolling on her side. "If you hadn't shown up when you did..." Carol shook her head and looked back at him. "She'd be dead. So can I have the gun back?"

"Nah. Ya obviously don't know how to use it. Yer grip was all wrong. Ya couldn't hold it steady. Ya ain't even snapped the clip in all the way." He pulled out the magazine and slapped it all the way in until it clicked. "Liable to get yerself or someone else killed."

"Then can you teach me?" she asked. "To use it?"

Daryl flicked on the safety with his thumb and slid the gun into waistband of his pants. "I ain't no teacher."

"Please? I'm tired of being defenseless. I'm tired of having to rely on a man."

"Think I'd just let you or the little girl die? Feed ya to the walkers?"

"That's _not_ what I said. I want to be able to defend myself and Sophia. Darlene can defend herself. Even Andrea can a little bit."

"Yeah, well, Andrea could use some trainin' too."

"So will you? Teach me?"

He sighed. He supposed he owed it to her, given that she wasn't flipping out over the fact that he'd crawled in bed with her. And it was a good idea for her to learn. Everyone should learn in this world. Hell, everyone should have learned in the old world too. "When we get to the cabins and we got some space. Until then," he patted the butt of the gun. "Holdin' onto this. So as ya don't shoot yer own damn foot off." He eased out her door, grateful he hadn't awoken Sophia.

When he turned around, Darlene was standing in the hallway in nothing but T-Dog's short-sleeved, solid black t-shirt, which barely reached her thighs. She must be on her way to the lobby bathrooms. They were avoiding using the ones in the hotel rooms for containment purposes.

"Well, well, well!" she said. "That happened a lot faster than I expected."

"Ain't nothin' happened."

"No? You're just sneakin' out of Carol's room at five-thirty in the mornin'?"

It was five-thirty already? "Her girl's in there! I ain't done nothin'! Just got confused 'bout the rooms. Stumbled in the wrong one. Passed out."

"Yeah." Darlene put a hand on one hip. "You _certainly_ had some confusion 'bout the rooms last night."

"Thought ya said ya was fantastic all on your own."

"I am. But there's _some_ things a girl can't do _entirely_ for herself."

"T-Dog's old school, Darlene. Went 'round pickin' up people in the church van when it all started. He's gonna think y'all got a thing goin' now."

Darlene shrugged. "Wouldn't be so bad. I kind of like T-Dog."

Daryl shook his head.

"What? I do! And what the hell was that shit 'bout not knowin' where I'd been? Ain't like you ain't had a bunch of one-night stands in your life." She snorted. "Or fifteen-minute stands."

"Shhhh!" Daryl looked nervously behind himself.

"Awww...You don't want your not-girlfriend to know you've never made real love to a woman, do you?"

"Just keep yer voice down, Darlene. People sleepin'."

"Well, it's hard to keep my voice down, 'cause I'm a little peeved right now. How dare you go implyin' to T-Dog I'm some kind of slut! I ain't slept 'round _that_ much."

"I's drunk when I said it!"

"Ain't no excuse, Daryl. You know, you can be a real ass sometimes."

"Sorry."

"Are you?" Darlene asked. "'Cause you don't sound like you _mean_ it. You know, I saved your ass from that cell. And then when you robbed me, and I got to turn the tables, I didn't strip you of everything like I damn well could of. And then I saved your ass _again_ at the nursin' home."

"'Cause yer dumb ass boyfriend shot me!"

"Saved yer not-girlfriend's daughter too." She stabbed him in the shoulder with the tip of her pointer finger. "And I don't _once_ recall you sayin' _thank you_." Darlene crossed her arms over herself and shook her head. "You've known me your whole damn life, just about. And I ain't never done ya wrong." She nodded to Carol's door. "But you're nicer to that woman you've known less than three weeks than you've _ever_ been to me."

Daryl glanced over his shoulder at Carol's door. He looked back at Darlene and chewed on his bottom lip. "Sorry," he said finally. "Thanks for savin' my ass twice. Thanks for savin' the girl. Only brought her to ya 'cause I knew you'd try. 'Cause…hell…yer a'right."

"Mhm. I _am_. And when you're not being an ass, so are you. So why don't you try _not_ being an ass a little more often?" She jutted her chin out toward Carol's door. "Just sayin'. You'll catch more flies with honey than with vinegar." Darlene turned and strutted down the hall.

Daryl went into his room and made extra sure it was _his_ room this time. He knew it was because it was empty except for his crossbow propped against the nightstand, and the bed sheet wasn't actually tucked in under the mattress. He grabbed an extra pillow from the closet, took off his boots, and lay down. He didn't wake up for another four hours, when Sophia's cry pierced his weird dreams. He snorted, rolled out of bed, and seized his crossbow. In stocking feet, he bolted from the room and ran toward the sound of the scream.


	21. The Game of Life

When he found Sophia in the lobby, Daryl tapered off his run and ended it by walking a swift circle before bending over to catch his breath. The girl was just playing with Carl. It was a squeal of delight - not a cry of fear – she'd let out. The kids had found a luggage cart, and Sophia was lying on it on her back, her splinted leg stretched out, while Carl pushed it.

His heart still thumping with a fading beat of fear, Daryl growled, "Quiet down!" He rubbed his head, which was pounding.

"You okay, Mr. Dixon?" Sophia asked.

"Just need to hydrate."

Carl helped Sophia up and handed the girl her crutches. Casting Daryl a worried look, she hobbled away from the cart, which Carl began riding flat on his stomach while using his feet to push.

"Are you sick?" Sophia asked Daryl.

"Nah. Just keep it down."

"Look, Soph!" Carl cried. "No hands!"

While Sophia was distracted by Carl's demonstration, Daryl made his way to the breakfast room. He almost turned around when he saw how many people were there, but he was thirsty and his head cried for liquid relief, so he went inside and poured himself a tall glass of Sunny Delight.

Lori shook her head. "I don't know how you stand that fake orange juice."

"Perfect for a redneck screwdriver," Daryl told her. He'd never had such a cocktail. If he was going to drink vodka, he just drank it straight from the bottle. But he figured that would give Lori a new image to add to her book of stereotypes.

"I could use a little hair of the dog myself," Rick said from where he sat massaging his forehead.

"You really should have stopped after that third glass, honey," Lori told him. "Be glad I cut you off after four."

Daryl chugged the Sunny Delight, set the empty glass down hard on the counter, and seized the bottle. While he poured himself a refill, he said, "Carl's ridin' the luggage cart standin' up with no hands and a pair of scissors."

That got Lori moving. Daryl took her vacated seat next to Rick, set down his Sunny D, and then nodded to the black coffee in Rick's cup. "Where'd ya get that?"

"Carol found a mobile power pack and plugged in the pot."

As if on cue, Carol set down a cup of coffee in front of Daryl. "Looks like you can use it."

He looked up at her, wondered if she'd told anyone she had found him in her bed, and muttered a thanks. Carol sat down next to Andrea at the far end of the table.

"Where's T-Dog?" Andrea asked. "I know Glenn's still sleeping it off."

"Think he's in Darlene's room," said Rick.

Andrea raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"Sure sounded like it last night." Rick shook his head. "We _cannot_ drink like that again. What if some walkers or a gang had busted in?"

"No one's busting through that pile of furniture against the lobby doors," Andrea said. "And the side exit doors are solid as can be and only open from the inside."

"Still think we were idiots," Rick said. "The only people sober were the kids."

"Carol was sober," Daryl said. She'd actually been a little buzzed after that second glass, but, playing the responsible mother, she'd stopped drinking at that point.

"And Lori was sober as a judge," Carol said.

"I was sober, too," Andrea insisted.

Carol laughed.

"Mostly." Andrea smiled. "You know what? Maybe we _should_ have done it. Life is short. At least we all had _fun_ last night."

T-Dog strolled into the room whistling.

"Some of us more than others," Rick said.

Andrea chuckled. Apparently she wanted to live now. Daryl had never fully believed in her suicidal funk. He didn't doubt Andrea had plenty to be depressed about. They all did. But there was no time for attention-seeking in this world. If you wanted to check out, you should just check out quickly, and not bother other people with your petal-picking "she kills herself, she kills herself not" bullshit.

"There's hot coffee?" T-Dog asked. Carol got up to get him a cup, but he waved her back into her seat and got his own.

"So where's Darlene?" The lilt to Andrea's voice was half scolding, half teasing. "Still sleeping it off?"

"I think she might be," T-Dog said. "Think she's sleeping _very soundly_ right about now." T-Dog sat down on the other side of Rick. "So what's the plan? We rolling out when Glenn drags himself out of bed?"

Rick nodded, but there was a change in plans a half hour later when Sophia heard a boom of thunder that rattled the lobby doors and Carl spied a flash of lightening through the cracks in the boarded-up windows. In another few minutes, rain was battering the building. Rick suggested they stay for one more night to be sure the storm had passed. It appeared to be moving north east, which was the direction they planned to go.

"Want that shit 'head of us 'fore we hit the road," Daryl agreed. "

"Besides, some of us could probably use a day to recover from our hangovers," Andrea added. "Not _me_ , but some of us."

[*]

After brunch, the kids discovered the hotel's game room and begged to use it. Carol went with them to take a look and found the room was not missing its door handle like the others. Instead, it was locked tight. Through the narrow window, she saw a walker rattling around, bumping into the pool table. The men must not have bothered to clear the room because it was contained.

"There's a walker in there," she told them.

"I know, but can't you just ask Mr. Dixon to kill it?" Sophia pleaded.

"The room is locked anyway," Carol told them.

"Darlene can pick locks!" Sophia insisted.

"Pleeeeease!" Carl begged. "There's a fooz ball table in there."

"And board games!" Sophia added.

"I'll ask them to clear the room," Carol promised. "But if they don't want to then you two don't whine about it."

"Yes, ma'am," Carl said.

[*]

Darlene couldn't pick that type of lock, so Rick put a silencer on his rifle, told everyone but Daryl to leave the hallway, and shot it off. Daryl kicked the loose door open and took out the walker with his crossbow. T-Dog dragged its rotting body out a side door. He came back soaked by the rain.

"Get yourself changed, T," Darlene told him. "I want to shoot some pool."

Everyone ended up in the game room, even Daryl, but he didn't join in any of the reindeer games. He sat by himself on the couch against the far wall and began cleaning the handgun he'd taken from Carol. Had it _needed_ cleaning? She didn't even know how you were supposed to tell if it did.

Sophia took her sweet time looking over the board games in the book case while Darlene and T-Dog started a game of pool. Carl and Rick made use of the fooz ball table as Lori stood on the sidelines to cheer both husband and son. Glenn found a deck of cards, and he and Andrea sat at one of the small, circular tables to play Jin Rummy. Glenn groaned as he studied his hand.

"You do a lot of kneelin' to that porcelain God last night, honey?" Darlene asked him.

"My room stinks now," Glenn muttered. "Think I'm going to switch to a new one for tonight."

"There ain't no more without windows," Darlene told him.

"He could sleep in your room," T-Dog said with a grin. "I mean…you won't be using it tonight, right?"

"Don't make assumptions, sugar." The balls cracked across the pool table as Darlene struck her eight ball.

T-Dog looked a little confused, but he didn't press the issue.

"You can sleep with me," Andrea said.

Glenn's eyes widened.

"Not _with_ me," Andrea clarified. "In my _room_. In the _other_ bed."

"Oh. Okay. Thanks."

"That one," Sophia decided finally, and lifted a hand from her crutches to point to The Game of Life. Carol took it down from the bookcase and brought it to the only available surface - the right end of the coffee table. The left end had handgun parts scattered all over it. Sophia sat on the couch not far from Daryl and rested her crutches against the arm. "You want to play with us, Mr. Dixon?"

"Dunno how."

"I'll teach you."

Carol sat down crosslegged on the floor on the other side of the couch.

"What color do you want to be, Mr. Dixon?"

"I ain't much for board games."

"Why not? Didn't you play when you were a boy?"

Daryl began putting the pieces of the gun back together. "Bought a bunch of cheap games at a yard sale once, when I's eight. Used the money I earned collectin' beer cans from 'round the creek."

"How can you earn money collecting cans?" Sophia asked as she began counting out the money. Carol noticed she was making three piles and hoped Daryl relented and agreed to play rather than disappointing her. She thought maybe her daughter had developed a bit of a childish crush on the man who had saved her life.

"Used to be ya could turn 'em in to a recyclin' center, get a little money." Daryl slid the reassembled gun in his waistband against his back. "When they wasn't made from such cheap shit."

"And you didn't like playing the board games you bought?" Sophia asked.

"Didn't have no one to play 'em with. Merle's too much older'n me and thought they was for sissies anyhow."

"What about your mom?"

"She'd play for a bit and then fall 'sleep, or stumble and knock the board over. 'Cause she'd be - " Carol shot him a warning look and he stopped. "She'd be tired."

"My daddy knocked over the Christmas tree once when he was tired," Sophia said. "It made him so mad, he threw the porcelain baby Jesus against the wall. I tried really hard, but I couldn't glue Jesus back together."

Carol flushed with shame to think how many times Sophia had witness her father's drunken destructiveness.

"That's a'right," Daryl told her. "They say Jesus can glue 'emself back together."

"So you never played the games you bought?" asked Carol, wanting to change the topic from that unwelcome memory.

"Tried to play 'em by myself," Daryl answered. "Put 'em on my bed. Run back and forth and play both sides of the board. Got tired of losin' to myself. So I took 'em out in the woods one night and burned 'em all. The fire was right pretty."

"Well you won't lose to yourself this time," Sophia said. "You can lose to me!"

One side of Daryl's lips curved ever so slightly, in what Carol was beginning to recognize as his smile. "So sure ya can beat me, are ya?"

"I'm really good at Life."

"Well, I suck at life."

Sophia's brow crinkled. "I thought you'd never played?"

"Meant the real deal. Might do a'right in the game. Ya get to pick your parents?"

"No," Sophia said. "But you get to pick your path!" She put a pink car and a yellow car on the Start space. "What color do you want to be, Mr. Dixon?"

To Carol's relief, he didn't let Sophia down. "Blue." Sophia picked up another car and set it on Start. "Nah, not the pansy powdered blue," he told her. "The man blue!"

Sophia switched out the light blue car for the dark blue car as Carol stifled her laugh.

When Sophia reached the first fork in the road, she said, "I'm taking the career path."

"No, sweetie, take college," Carol insisted.

"Why?"

"Because a good education will mean a nice job," Carol answered. "Better paying."

"Ain't nothin' wrong with the trades," Daryl insisted. "And look, path's shorter. Get ya to the finish line faster. Don't the first person to the finish get some prize?"

"You get extra money," Sophia said. "For being the first player to retire."

"But you'll make more money over the course of the game if you go to college, Soph," Carol told her.

"Then why didn't you?" Sophia asked. "In real life?"

Carol could feel the heat rise to her cheeks. She'd been accepted to Georgia State University, but she hadn't gotten a scholarship, and she had no way to pay, with her parents dead and that looming mortgage on the family house. So she went straight to work full-time instead, at a menial job. "Well I – "

"- 'Cause she knew a college degree wouldn't be worth shit in the zombie apocalypse," Daryl said. "But yer mama's right. Take the college route." He pointed at the arrow that led in that direction.

Sophia shrugged and moved that way.

When it was time for Daryl to get married, Sophia slipped a little pink peg into his car. "Did your wife die from the superflu?" she asked.

"Ain't never had no wife."

"Why? You're plenty old enough."

"Sophia!" Carol scolded her.

"Never found no one who wanted me to be her husband," Daryl said.

"Were you _looking_?" Sophia asked.

Carol shot her a warning gaze.

"Not real hard," Daryl admitted.

"I don't ever want to get married," Sophia said. "Unless **_I_** get to be the husband."

Carol's heart jumped in her chest. "What do you mean?"

Sophia shrunk back into the couch. She toyed with her money, which she'd put on the end table next to her seat, and shrugged. "Just seems better to be the husband is all. You always get what you want. And you never get hurt. Well...until you die."

Daryl coughed and spun. The wheel whirled and whirled and whirled. Carol stared into its spiral and felt like she was about to cry. It stopped abruptly. Daryl picked up his car and slapped it down – one – slap – two – slap – three- slap – four – slap – five...Daryl leaned close to Sophia and half whispered, "Look at Lori." At the moment, Lori was standing near the fooz ball table on the other side of the game room, her hand on the small of Rick's back, as he spun the knob for one of his players. She was laughing, and so was Rick. "Ain't _always_ bad to be the wife."

Carol quickly ran two fingertips around the edges of her eyes to hide any evidence of the solitary tears that had escaped. Her voice cracked when she told him, "You just had twin babies."

"Spin for presents!" Sophia insisted as she drove the blue and pink pegs into the back row of Daryl's car.

[*]

Daryl left when the Game of Life was over and went to the breakfast room where he could clean his _own_ handgun in peace and quiet. That one he kept toward the front of his pants, since he was holding onto two now. He'd just put it back together and racked it open when he sensed a presence and looked up. Carol was leaning against the open entry way.

"Can you start teaching me to use a gun today?" she asked. " _Please?_ I just want my daughter to know a woman can…" She stopped, swallowed, and looked at the floor.

"Cain't fire guns in here," he said.

"Rick did. To shoot off that lock."

"Shouldn't of."

" _Please_."

He felt sorry for Carol after all the things Sophia had said during the Game of Life. He could tell Carol felt humiliated and ashamed by those dirty family secrets, and the woman, despite her bad taste in husband and her failure to leave Ed sooner, had done far more to protect Sophia from her father than Daryl's mother had ever done to protect him from Will Dixon. Carol just wanted to protect Sophia now. And she wanted it almost desperately. How could he say no to that?

"Get started today," he agreed. "Go through the basics with ya. But we ain't shootin' yet."


	22. Lessons with Daryl

While Sophia continued to play in the game room with Carl and the others, Carol followed Daryl to the indoor pool. The pool had been drained and was in the process of being refinished. Most of the chairs and tables had been put away, but there were still one circular table left out. Daryl made her sit down, and he rested the handgun flat on the table. On the other side of that, he lay down a rifle that he'd taken from the gun bag. The barrel extended beyond the table, and Carol felt suddenly nervous. She wanted to learn, but she also didn't want to embarrass herself in front of a man she was already afraid considered her a burden.

"First, we're gonna go over gun safety." He walked over to the wall and removed a clipboard that hung there. It was full of papers for recording pool readings. He brought it back, set it down in front of her, and flipped over the first few sheets of paper to the blank backside. The pen, which was attached by a string to the clipboard, dangled over the table. He seized it, slapped it down on top of the paper, and said, "Write 'em down so as ya don't forget."

Relieved that they were easing into it with a simple word exercise, Carol picked up the pen. She could write. She could memorize things. This part shouldn't be too hard.

Daryl plunked into the seat across from her. "Number one. A gun is always loaded."

She looked at the handgun, which didn't even have the clip thingy inside of it, and the rifle, which she'd never seen him load. "These guns aren't loaded, are they?"

"A gun is _always_ fuckin' loaded! Write it down!"

Carol flinched and began writing.

Daryl seemed to regret raising his voice to her, and he lowered it. "Ya _treat_ it like it is anyhow. 'Cause ya don't know. So ya got to check it. First drop the magazine."

 _Magazine_ , she noted. _That's what you call it_.

He showed her how to drop the magazine from the handgun and then rack the chamber and look inside to see if there was any bullet. He put the magazine back in. "Now you check it."

He sighed when she forgot how to release the magazine. "No! That's the safety!" He scooted his chair closer to hers, put his hands over her hands, and pressed her thumb against the button that dropped the magazine. His own thumb was calloused, maybe from all that shooting and fiddling with his crossbow, but, surprisingly enough, it didn't feel unpleasant. There was something reassuringly masculine about the roughness of his skin.

"There." He pressed her thumb against the button, which dropped the clip. He let go of her hands and sat back.

Feeling embarrassed, she muttered, "Your teaching methods leave something to be desired."

"Then ask Rick."

Carol didn't want to ask Rick. Rick would be too patient, too nice. He'd make her feel like an idiot with his niceness. It was better to feel stupid because someone was yelling at you for something you actually did wrong than to feel stupid because someone was talking to you as if you were a child who had to be gently guided through the most basic accomplishments. At least Daryl wasn't condescending. "I don't want Rick. I want you. I don't want to learn to be a cop. I want to learn to be a _survivor_."

Daryl put his fingers on his lips and studied her.

She wished she knew what he was thinking. "So what's the second rule of gun safety?"

"Get to it." First, he showed her how to check if the rifle was loaded, too. This time, she didn't forget how and followed his example perfectly. Then she set down the rifle and picked up her pen again.

He held up two fingers and she wrote the number 2 on her paper. "Never," he said, " _never_ point a gun at somethin' ya don't intend to _destroy_. Like, for example, _me_. Less'n ya intended that."

"I didn't," she said, writing quickly on her paper. "But to be fair, I did wake up and find a strange man in my bed."

"But ya believe I just stumbled in, right? That I didn't try nothin'?"

He really seemed concerned that she didn't believe him. Was he terrified of sending the message that he might be attracted to her? "Don't worry. I know you wouldn't want to try anything with me."

Daryl's brow furrowed, almost as though he was confused rather than reassured by her response. His eyes fell to the clipboard. "Three." She wrote down the number three. "Keep yer finger off the goddamn trigger 'til yer ready to shoot."

"Can I write these down in my own words?"

"No."

Carol chuckled because he'd said it in such a deadpan fashion. She tried to suppress the chuckle as soon as it emerged, but she couldn't. To her relief, his lips were twitching when she raised her eyes hesitantly from the paper.

"Fine," he said. "Ya can write the gosh darn trigger if'n ya like."

Carol smiled and wrote.

Daryl held up four fingers. "Be damn sure of yer target and what's _beyond_ it. 'Cause ya don't want to shoot a walker, have the bullet go through it, and then hit me if I happen to be standin' behind it."

Carol nodded and wrote. "I'm really not trying to kill you, you know. You've been good to me."

"I ain't never been good to no one."

Carol raised her head. "You risked your life to save my daughter. You tracked us. You saved me, Lori, and Carl. You got Sophia to that nursing home. You cleared this hotel. You've hunted for us. You've been good to..." She didn't want him to think she believed it was all about her. "To _us_ , I meant. To the group."

Daryl chewed on his thumbnail. She'd noticed that nervous habit of his. He did it whenever he felt uneasy. And he was clearly uneasy with praise. He probably hadn't heard much of it in his life and didn't know how to respond to it. He dropped his thumb from his mouth. "Ya left eye or right eye dominant?"

"I…uh….I don't know."

Daryl turned his chair to face the pool. "Sit like this." She did. "Now stretch out yer finger and point at the thermometer on that wall." Carol did. "Ya pointing at it?"

"Yes," she said hesitantly. She wasn't quite sure what they were doing.

"Now keep pointin' and close yer left eye."

"I can't without closing both eyes."

He put a hand over her left eye. His hand was warmer than she would have expected, almost as though he'd been holding it above a fire. It made her wonder what his naked body might feel like in bed on a cold night, pressed up against hers.

Good Lord, why was she thinking about _that_? Carol hadn't often thought about sex when she was married to Ed. She had learned to deaden that part of herself, to perform on request, and to block the act out of her mind afterward. She might notice a man was good-looking, but in the same objective way she noticed a painting was well constructed. She rarely felt this bizarre, half-unwelcome tingle.

"Ya still pointin' at it?" Daryl asked.

Carol swallowed before she answered. "It looks off to the side a little."

He slid his hand away. "Open both eyes," he ordered. She did. "Ya pointing at it?"

"Yes."

"Now close your right eye." That she could do without closing both eyes. "Still pointing at it?"

"Yes."

"Yer left-eye dominant."

"Well, at least I'm dominant in something," she joked.

Daryl seemed more flustered than amused by her quip. He stood and picked up the handgun. Following his example, she stood. He handed it to her, and, by placing his hands over hers, showed her how to hold it. She jumped a little at the intimacy.

"Relax," said Daryl, sounding offended. "Just need to show ya what to do. Ain't hittin' on ya." He pointed out the sights and explained how to line them up. "Make sure the blue dot's 'tween the white dots so it kind of makes a straight line over what yer pointin' at. Close yer right eye if'n ya need to." He told her to pull the trigger. There was little resistance and it made a simple click. Of course, at this point, she had no idea if her aim was any good, as she wasn't actually shooting.

He fished an orange cap out of one of his pants pockets and loaded it into the gun.

"Is that a bullet?" she asked.

"Dry firin' cap. So ya can get used to pullin' the trigger without actually shootin'."

"Does it shoot out?"

"No it don't shoot out!"

"What's the point, then?" she asked.

"Point is yer gonna ruin the gun if ya keep dry firin' all day without the cap."

"Oh. Okay."

He told her again how to pull the trigger, fluidly, all the way back, in a single motion, and he made her practice repeatedly. "Ya get used to this," he explained, "and it won't startle ya as much when ya actually shoot."

He guided her through the same thing with the rifle next, but this time he had to stand behind her and put his arms around hers to show her how to hold it. She expected to feel a bit uncomfortable when his arms surrounded hers. She hadn't expected to feel _aroused,_ or to notice so intently the firm ripple of his muscles against the bare flesh of her upper arms. A little taken aback by the sensation, she loosened her hold on the rifle, so he pulled the butt of the gun back into her shoulder, but that caused her to fall back against him. Her ass went right into his crotch, and he jerked his hips back almost like he'd been shot. Was she really that repulsive to him?

"Keep it on yer damn shoulder!" he growled.

She nodded.

He let go of her arms and stepped back slightly. He put a booted foot between her legs and kicked them open a little. "Spread 'em."

She stiffened, feeling simultaneously nervous and titillated. "What?"

"Need to get yer stance right. Steady yerself. Can't stand almost ankle to ankle like that."

"Okay," she said. She craned her neck to look back at him and found him tugging on the tail of his shirt to stretch it downward.

"Look where yer aimin'!" he barked.

She looked forward again.

He sighed. "A'right now..Line up yer sights like I showed ya…pull back hard 'gainst yer shoulder, steady the rifle." His voice was deep and masculine, but his cadence seemed slower than usual. "Now when yer ready, slide that finger on down to the trigger and pull – steady and sure. Don't slack off halfway through. Keep up the pace. Finish it off."

Carol hadn't realized she was holding her breath until she heard the click of the hammer and sighed. She lowered the rifle. "Was that right?"

"Did fine," Daryl said.

"But how can I know if I'd have shot anything for real?"

"Ain't 'bout that yet. Yer inexperienced. Ya need to get used to the feel of the gun in yer hand without all the recoil that'll make ya jump. Get comfortable just holdin' it, applyin' a little pressure...learn how it feels, where all the parts are, then, when it's time for the _real_ thing -"

She turned with the rifle in her hands. "Kind of like sex, huh?"

He turned an angry red and she regretted her words instantly. Roughly, he shoved the barrel of the rifle away. "Yer breaking rule two!"

She flushed, apologized, and walked over to lay the rifle down on the table. Not looking at him, she repeated, "Never point a gun at something you don't intend to destroy."

"Yeah," he said, his voice suddenly softer, almost contrite. "Don't do that shit no more."

"Sorry."

"Yer still learnin'."

"Is there anything else you can teach me without real bullets? Like how to take it apart?"

"Teach ya how to load it first," he said. "And then yer gonna practice 'til ya can load a full magazine quick."

"Okay."

"But first, yer gonna read me back the four rules of gun safety. _Ten times_."

[*]

As Daryl took the guns he'd been using to teach Carol back to his room, he wished he hadn't been so short tempered with her. But it bothered him when she did dangerous shit, like turn around with a gun in her hand. He didn't want her getting hurt.

What had bothered him most of all, however, was that when he'd accidentally pulled that rifle back a little too hard against her shoulder, so that she'd hit his crotch, he got a hard-on.

He hoped she hadn't noticed.

It couldn't look good, crawling into her bed drunk one night and then getting a hard-on the next morning just because her lean, firm ass happened to have rubbed against – Jesus, he had to stop thinking about that.

Except he couldn't.

So after he was alone in his room, he dragged the desk chair in front of his door to make sure it stayed closed, threw himself back-down on his bed, and undid his pants. He thought of Carol in that red jersey she'd been wearing last night and of all the things he'd like to do to her while she was still in it. His release was followed by an ugly wave of emotion.

Merle had walked in on him masturbating once, when he was thirteen. Daryl's big brother had laughed and said, "You're such a fuckin' faggot. Queer as a three dollar bill. Love your own dick." Daryl hadn't realized Merle was joking, and the feeling of perversion had lingered long after he realized _everyone_ did it. Eventually, he'd gotten over that sense of shame, and masturbation had become as routine as any other bodily function. But for some reason, the fact that he'd been thinking about _Carol_ this time, instead of some random supermodel or even one of the other women in the group, made him feel guilty and inadequate. If she knew the sort of sexual thoughts that went through his head...she'd pack up all her gratitude for saving Sophia, her claim that he was "every bit as good as Rick," her misplaced faith in him, and she'd get as far away as she could.

The door rattled lightly in its frame just as he was wiping himself clean with a hotel towel. Carol's voice penetrated the barrier: "We're about to sit down to an early dinner since no one really had lunch. Are you joining us?"

Fuck. Did she have some kind of radar? "Be there in a few!"

"No wine this time," she called back. "We're saving the rest." Her light footsteps disappeared.


	23. On the Road Again

By the time he shuffled into the breakfast room, everybody was already eating. A white, styrofoam plate of food had been left for him at the spot between Sophia and Carl. Sophia pulled back the chair. "Here, Mr. Dixon!"

He wanted to grab his plate and take it to the counter top, or maybe even back to his room, but he also didn't want to disappoint the little girl, so he sat down. At least the spot wasn't right next to or across from Carol.

Someone had spread six fancy crackers with peanut butter and lined them up in two rows of three on his plate. Next to that, they'd dished out a serving of canned peaches.

"You like it?" Sophia asked, which lead him to believe she was the one who had done it.

"Mhmhmm…" He murmured as he swallowed down a cracker. "My compliments to the chef." He picked up a slippery peach with his fingers and tossed it in his mouth.

"I gave you a fork," Sophia said. He looked at the little plastic fork on the white paper napkin, and the plastic knife next to it. He wondered how she'd set the table while hobbling about on crutches. He supposed she'd learn from Carol to attend to the housework in all states of disease and injury. He picked up the fork and stabbed it into another peach, even though he didn't really see the point of utensils for most foods.

"The napkin goes in your lap," Sophia told him.

T-Dog chuckled. "Sophia's Finishing School," he said.

"She ain't never met a more difficult student," Darlene added.

Daryl glowered at them, grabbed the napkin, and shoved it in his lap.

"You should unfold it first," Sophia told him.

"Ya realize we livin' in a world where people's walkin' round dead, their flesh all slippin' off and shit?" he asked her.

"Doesn't mean we can't be polite."

Andrea snorted.

Daryl grumbled but unfolded his napkin.

"You, too, Carl," Lori said. "Put the napkin in your lap."

Carl obeyed.

"Does that mean _I_ have to, too?" Rick asked.

"Only if you want to get laid later," Darlene said, which caused Lori to flush and T-Dog to laugh.

[*]

Daryl went to bed early because he hadn't slept well the night before. Sometime around midnight, there was a knock at his door. He'd gone to sleep dressed except for his boots and shoes, so he just picked up his handgun, slid the chair away from the door, and opened it cautiously. Carol stood in the half-painted hallway, her soft, blue eyes illuminated by the hazy glow of the flashlight lantern she held at her side. Over her shoulder, he could see Sophia leaning back against the opposite wall, a crutch under each of her arms.

"Sorry to wake you," Carol said, "But Sophia is terrified. She can hear the walkers rattling around upstairs above our room."

"Ain't gonna go outside the buildin' and up the stairs to clear the second floor," Daryl said. "Ain't no inside staircase. They cain't get down. Nothin' to worry 'bout."

"I know, but the sound's giving her flashbacks to the camp massacre."

Daryl sighed and tried to think what he could offer them that wouldn't involve going outside or killing any walkers. "Y'all wanna switch rooms? Cain't hear nothin' in mine."

Carol glanced back at Sophia and then met Daryl's eyes again. "She'd feel a lot safer if you were actually _in_ the room. She trusts you to be able to protect her." Carol winced. "She doesn't trust _me_. Yet."

"So..." Daryl wasn't quite sure what she was suggesting. "Y'all want to sleep in _my_ room with _me_ still in here?" He wondered why she wasn't more repulsed by him, why she had sought him out instead of Rick for instruction and protection, why she seemed, almost, to _want_ to be around him.

"If you don't mind," Carol said. "I'd appreciate it. Sophia and I can sleep in the second bed. We won't be any bother, I promise."

She'd be a hell of a bother. She was wearing that same damn jersey she'd had on last night. It was at least as long as a pair of shorts or a spring dress would have been, but it was the _suggestiveness_ that rattled him, the idea that she was missing an article of clothing she'd normally be wearing. Jerseys went with pants. But Carol didn't have on any pants.

"Please?" Sophia asked from the hallway.

Daryl opened the door all the way. "A'right. Y'all come in. But ya got to make the other bed." Daryl got back in his own bed right away.

Carol got the sheets out of the closet and set the lantern down on the end table. It cast a cone-shaped glow. Daryl tried not to look at her bent over the bed while she tucked in the sheets, and when the edge of her jersey rose up, he shut his eyes hard and fast.

The bed creaked as Carol and Sophia situated themselves, and then the room went dark. Sixty seconds later, he heard a snore that sounded like something straight out of a Popeye cartoon, and he snorted like he might have when he was a boy of six.

In the next bed over, Carol let out an equally girlish giggle. "Sorry," she whispered. "Sophia won't snore long. It's usually just the first few minutes after she falls asleep."

"Hope ya don't snore, too."

"I don't." She was quiet for a moment, and then she said, "Thank you, Daryl, for letting us stay here. I know you don't like people very much."

"Like ya well enough."

Sophia's cartoonish snore filled the quiet that followed. Then Carol asked, very softly, "Why?"

Daryl didn't know how to answer that. He wasn't fully aware quite how much he _did_ like Carol until he'd said that out loud. "Well, uh...ya...say nice things. And yer a good mama." She probably would have died trying to save Sophia if he hadn't shown up when he did. "And yer braver 'n ya think."

None of that had sounded creepy, had it? She sure was quiet over there in that other bed. He couldn't see much in the darkness that bathed the room.

"Thank you," she said at last, almost in a whisper.

"Nite." He rolled on his side, his back to her.

"Goodnight."

He didn't fall asleep right away. Sophia's intermittent snore wasn't the problem. It was soft and innocent and he could have slept through it easily. But he could hear T-Dog and Darlene going at it in the next room over. Apparently that assumption T-Dog wasn't supposed to make had turned out to be the correct assumption after all.

Normally, Daryl could sleep through that, too, but with Carol in the room, the sound of sex took on a completely different meaning. He couldn't help but wonder if she was awake, if she heard it, and what she was thinking. He was relieved when the groaning and moaning and bedshaking stopped.

But then it started again.

Jesus, how did they start up again that fast? No way a guy could get a second hard-on _that fast,_ unless he had superpowers. Gradually, Daryl realized the sound was coming through the _opposite_ wall this time.

"Well," came Carol's amused voice from the other bed. "At least Rick is finally getting some."

[*]

They all rose early the next morning, ate a quick breakfast, and then packed up the remaining food, the few bottles of wine they hadn't drunk, the battery-powered lights, the mobile-power pack, and some of the workmen's tools. They left through one of the side doors so they wouldn't have to haul all of the furniture away from the lobby doors. A few walkers had congregated in the parking lot outside overnight, and Daryl took them out swiftly while the others loaded up.

The cardboard Rick had used to cover the busted driver's side window of the pick-up was soggy and half disintegrated. He pulled the remaining pieces away and left the soppy mass on the parking lot.

"Eww…" Sophia said as Carol helped her into the backseat where she could stretch out her leg. "It _stinks_ in here."

"Stinks every damn where," Daryl told her. "Ya care more 'bout the smell of a wet truck than a bunch of rottin' corpses?"

"I'm _used_ to the smell of walkers."

Daryl shook his head. Kids were weird. Damn weird. There was just no two ways about it.

"At least _your_ seat's not wet," Rick said. He grabbed one of the handful of towels they'd taken from the hotel and lay it atop the driver's seat.

Glenn crawled into the bed of the pick-up, where the things they'd looted from the hotel now took up about half the space. Carl slid in between Lori and Rick on the front bench seat. Before Carol could climb in the back seat with Sophia, Daryl gestured for her to come over to his motorcycle. When she did, he reached around and pulled the handgun out of the back waistband of his pants and handed it to her. "Check it."

Carol dropped the magazine and then racked open the slide. "It's clear."

"Now load and lock it."

She slid the clip back in, racked the gun, and put the safety on.

"Don't use it unless ya absolutely _have_ to. It's noisy, and ya ain't really ready. So unless yer gonna _die,_ don't try nothin'. Leave it to someone else for now. Ya hear?"

Carol nodded. She looked at her waist and tried to figure out where to put the gun.

"Here." Daryl took the gun back and dipped his hand into her waistband enough to pull it outward. She felt a sudden fluttering in the pit of her stomach. He pushed the gun inside. "Be best there."

"Okay," she practically whispered.

Daryl mounted his motorcycle. Andrea was sliding on the back of T-Dog's bike, and Darlene was already starting hers. In a day or two, they should be at their new permanent camp – as permanent as anything ever got in this world, that was.

[*]

Daryl's bike sputtered to a stop before the mass of abandoned cars. The pick-up slowed behind him, and Rick's door creaked open. The ex-deputy's footsteps fell hard on the asphalt. "I thought you knew where you were going."

"Do," Daryl said. "Got to backtrack two miles and take that side road. Thought we'd come here and siphon off some gas first."

"Good plan," Rick agreed. "Pick-up's down to less than a quarter of a tank."

Andrea dismounted from behind T-Dog, and Darlene wandered over as he was getting off the bike. "You a little bit jealous of Andrea's arms around me?" T-Dog teased.

"Long as yer dick ain't in her, I really couldn't give a shit."

"No worries there," Andrea said. "The last thing I want in an apocalypse is to risk a pregnancy."

Lori, who had just joined them, appeared suddenly nervous as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

Now Carl wandered over. "Stay in the truck, honey," Lori said. "With Sophia. And keep the doors locked."

"The front window's busted," Carl said. "What good will locking the doors do?"

"Obey your mother," Rick told him.

Carl grumbled, but he went back. This time, Lori's hovering made sense to Daryl. Locking the doors was useless, but the kids shouldn't be wandering around between the cars. Kids didn't pay enough attention to their surroundings. A walker might spill out a partially opened door or crawl out from under a car and bite their ankles. Besides, if they had to flee back to the pick-up, Sophia couldn't run.

Once Carl was inside the truck, the kids began playing scissor, paper, rock. Daryl remembered playing that game with his cousin Billy Ray for almost an hour in the backseat of his Uncle Clevus's half-rusted 1962 Dodge Charger. They'd been waiting for their daddies to get out of the strip club. Daryl was almost seven at the time, and Billy Ray was eight. The men had left the windows cracked, and Will Dixon had warned, "Don't y'all dare set foot out this car or I'll box yer ears good!"

After fifty minutes of that dumb ass game, though, the boys got bored and slid out the backseat, snuck up like ninjas (or so they though) on the strip club, and tried to peer through the darkened windows. They weren't able to see anything, so they wandered back out into the parking lot, where they picked up rocks and started throwing them at the flashing, neon sign. They made a game of it, betting to see who could get closest to the garter belt on the lady's leg, not that they knew it was _called_ a garter belt at the time. They knew she was a lady though, because the sign said _Ladies, Ladies, Ladies!_

Billy Ray hit the lady's high heel, and there was a sound of shattering glass. The sign sparked and fizzled flecks of fire, and they went high tailing it right back to the car, where they sunk down low behind the front seats, cowering for another fifteen minutes until their daddies came out. Will and Clevus Dixon stood outside the car, arguing over which one of them was too drunk to drive. There was a scuffle, and, in the end, it was Will Dixon who got into the passenger's seat, wiping the blood that was dribbling out of his nose with the back of his hand and cursing, "Am not too damn drunk, ya goddamn Puritan!"

"Buckle up, boys!" Uncle Clevus said cheerfully as he started the car. When he began to weave his way out of the parking lot, Billy Ray and Daryl looked at each other and then looked down at the seats, which had no seat belts.

"Yer uncle said buckle up, boy!" Will Dixon yelled. "Now buckle the fuck up!"

"Yes, sir." Daryl pretended to be pulling a belt across his lap, hoping it would be enough to fool his father. Billy Ray, who had always had a talent for sound effects, made a clicking sound with his mouth, and they both suppressed a snort.

Now, as Daryl stood guard with his crossbow, keeping his eyes in all directions so that the others could begin siphoning off gas and looking for supplies, he tried not to think of Billy Ray. He tried not to think of all those familiar, twisted faces that had pressed up against the bars of that holding cell the day everything went to shit, or of those hollow green eyes that stared out of of Billy Ray's face as Merle drove a metal box spring straight into his unthinking brain.

Unlike Daryl, Billy Ray had been going places, or at least settling somewhere. Daryl's cousin had worked sixty-hour weeks tending bar and had finally saved up enough money to buy into the place, a tenth a share. He was going to ask his girl to marry him, and they were going to start a family. Daryl was going to be an uncle. Or a second cousin. Or a first cousin once removed. Or some shit. He never understood how all that worked. But he understood it wasn't going to happen now. Because Billy Ray was gone, as was his girl, and every other person Daryl had ever known, except Darlene, and maybe Merle. But Merle might as well be gone, because he sure as shit wasn't looking for Daryl.

"You all right?" Carol asked. Her blue eyes were soft with worry as she studied his face.

He hadn't even felt her looking at him. Daryl cursed himself for not being more aware and shook off his distraction. "I's fine," he muttered. "Ya gonna help 'em find shit or just stare at me all day?" He paced away from her, his crossbow held upright.


	24. Graveyard

Carol cast one last wary glance back at Daryl, who had settled into a formal pattern with his pacing. He observed. He sensed. He acted. But he wasn't, she didn't think, the sort of man to get lost in the corridors of his own mind. And yet, just now, there had been a far away look in his eyes, and a quiet sadness playing at their corners. It had taken him a full thirty seconds to notice her watching him. If she hadn't spoken, it might have taken even longer.

She walked around T-Dog, who was squatting by the tank of a car, and Glenn, who was stretching a tube toward one of the motorcycles. Darlene and Andrea were rummaging through the trunks of two separate cars. "You gonna help, Lori?" Darlene asked. "Carol?"

"Sure." Carol looked around at the vehicles arrayed in a choppy ocean of panic, turned every which way, and crashed into one another. Trapped walkers clawed against the windows of a few. In others, dead bodies lay face down on dashboards and steering wheels. Perhaps brain injuries from the collision had prevented them from turning. Elsewhere, widely flung open doors and popped trunks told of terrified flights to almost certain death.

Cautiously, she opened the slightly raised trunk of one car all the way, ready to slam it shut if something reached out. Nothing did. She surveyed the contents: a plastic bag labeled "emergency change of clothes," paper towels, glass wipes, a blanket, picnic basket, towels, sunscreen, and a child-size inner tube. That was it - as if they thought they were heading for a day at the lake. Maybe they had been. Maybe all these people hadn't been fleeing the city. Maybe they'd been on their way to work or vacation or grandma's house or their doctor's office (with the superflu) when the massive collision happened, when everything came to a sudden, screeching halt, and the dead began to turn.

"This is a graveyard," rose Lori's voice from behind her. "I don't know how I feel about this."

Darlene pulled a blue first-aid kit out of a trunk and turned. "You don't know how you _feel_ 'bout it?" she asked. "Well let me tell you somethin', Snowflake. This here's a gooddamn apocalypse, and we need to stay stocked. These people are dead. They don't give a shit 'bout yer feelings. Yer feelings ain't given them any warm fuzzies right now. So start lootin'!"

Lori's eyes narrowed, but she _did_ start looting. She pulled a red plastic gas can out of one trunk and shook it. The liquid, probably a full gallon, sloshed. She walked over and set it down next to Glenn. "Fill that up, too," she said.

A few minutes later, Carol found a pick-up with the keys still in the ignition. She called Darlene over to show her. When Darlene turned the key, it started, and the fuel gauge rose to the three-fourths a tank mark. "Hey, T," Darlene called to T-Dog. "Got you a truck for your birthday!" She turned off the engine.

T-Dog grinned and stood from his crouched position.

"It's your birthday?" Glenn asked.

"I think," T-Dog said. "If it's the 12th."

"I think it's the 11th, actually. Maybe the 10th?"

T-Dog strolled over to the pick-up and rolled his motorcycle into the bed. "Want to ride with me in this?" he asked Darlene. "Send Andrea to the back of Daryl's bike?"

She shook her head. "Andrea can ride shotgun in this. I want to take my motorcycle. Drive my own self. I like bein' in control."

T-Dog grinned. "Except in the bedroom, right?"

Darlene rolled her eyes, but she also smiled.

"Get a room," Carol told them.

"Well, if Daryl's right about these cabins being safe and mostly clear," T-Dog said. "We will."

Carol found another popped trunk, raised it carefully, and opened the single large suitcase inside. She drew a red summer dress out and held it up to herself to judge the length.

"Not real practical for an apocalypse."

Carol jumped at Darlene's voice, and, ashamed to have been caught admiring the dress, folded it up and flung it back in the suitcase.

"Sorry," Darlene apologized. "Take it. When we're in the cabins, you can wear it inside sometimes."

"It's just…my husband never let me have nice things."

Darlene picked up the dress. "It's real pretty." She held it up to Carol. "It'd look great on you. Bring out the blue in those eyes."

Carol smiled lightly and took it.

"Bet Daryl would like it on you."

Carol flushed. It was almost as though Darlene assumed Daryl was attracted to her. Or that Carol wanted him to be. "I'm sure Daryl doesn't care about clothes."

"I'm sure he don't. But he's a _man_. And that'll show off your assets. He'll notice _that part_ at least." Darlene wandered off and began rummaging through another trunk.

Carol shoved the dress in an empty tote bag she'd found in the trunk, along with a small bag of prescription medicines and some mouthwash. That had alcohol in it and might come in use for a variety of purposes, she supposed. Next, she discovered a trunk with several unopened plastic packages of socks and men's boxers. This would cut down on their laundry considerably at the cabins. She gathered the packages, stacked them high, and with her chin on the top one walked over to Rick's pick-up. She was just tossing them in the bed when she heard Rick's cry of "Oh shit!" He was standing on top of an SUV and looking through the scope of his rifle.

Carol turned and looked away from the abandoned cars, down the empty highway. Except it wasn't empty anymore. An immense herd of walkers was funneling its way through a narrow opening between the concrete barriers that divided the highway. The creatures streamed onto their side of the road.

The panicked kids looked with widened eyes out the back window. Sophia started screaming.

Daryl ran to the pick-up, put a finger to his lips, and the girl stopped. Carol could tell she felt instantly safer with Daryl at her side, but even Daryl couldn't kill four dozen walkers coming their way, and they were _still_ funneling through that barrier. There was no driving through the piled-up of cars ahead either. The road was completely blocked going forward.

"The only way out is through them," Carol said.

By now, the others had gathered around the pick-up. "There's at least fifty more on the other side of those barriers," Rick told them.

The front of the herd was still half a block away, but they'd either caught sight or scent of human flesh, because they'd started lurching faster.

"Cain't drive through that many," Daryl said.

"Should we hide in or under the cars until they pass?" Lori asked.

"Nah. We'd be trapped if they saw us. Nowheres to run. Need to get in them woods." Daryl yanked open the pick-up door and pulled Carl out with one arm. "Get in fast, get behind the trees, wait for 'em to pass."

"They'll follow us!" Lori cried, her voice trembling

"Not if T-Dog and I draw 'em off a mile." Darlene leveled her rifle in the direction of the approaching herd.

T-Dog followed her example. "We'll give y'all time to get away," he agreed. "Hide until they pass and then get in the trucks and get the hell out."

"Then T and I will lose 'em up the road a ways," Darlene said. "Backtrack, get my bike, and meet y'all back at that fork in the road."

"What about Sophia?" Carl asked, his young voice growing high with fear.

"I got 'er," Daryl assured him. "Y'all run!"

Lori yanked Carl by the hand, and Rick fled with his family through the maze of cars, off the highway, and into the woods. Glenn and Andrea followed.

Meanwhile, Sophia slid herself to the edge of the bench seat of the pick-up, her splinted leg sticking straight out through the open doorway. She leaned over and strained to reach her crutches on the floor. Carol looked frantically at the nearing herd. "She can't move fast enough!"

"Hold my bow!" Daryl ordered her.

Carol grabbed the weapon from his outstretched hand. It was much heavier than she had imagined, given the ease with which he carried and aimed it.

"Leave the damn crutches, girl!" he hollered. Sophia stopped straining for them as Daryl turned around in front of her and crouched down slightly. "Ya ever have a piggy back ride?"

Sophia nodded nervously, but she climbed on, wrapping her arms around his neck and her one good leg around his waist.

"Hurry up!" T-Dog shouted.

Daryl stood and jostled Sophia's awkward weight. Her one splinted leg hung down, which made things a little more difficult, but he got a good grip on her and began weaving through the cars and jogging toward the woods. Carol ran after them as gunshots rang out on the highway. She turned to see Darlene and T-Dog walking backwards while shooting, drawing the slow-moving walkers toward them.

Carol was almost off the highway when a hand reached out from underneath a car and seized her ankle. The walker yanked, and she went tumbling to the ground. The crossbow flew from her hands and landed half on the shoulder while her stomach smacked hard against the asphalt. She raised her head to scream for Daryl, but Sophia's back was already disappearing into the forest.

Carol shut her lips tight and swallowed her own scream. If Daryl heard her cry, he might come back for her, and that would put Sophia in jeopardy. Better that he vanish into the forest all together. Better that he hide her little girl.

Daryl's crossbow was still within reach of her fingertips, but she had no idea how to use the thing. So instead, she rolled onto her back, her ankle twisting in the creature's grip, and yanked the handgun out of her waistband. Carol pushed the safety off with her thumb, aimed, and pulled the trigger – _all the way back, don't let up_ – just like Daryl had taught her, but the gun was unsteady in her nervous hand. She missed the walker's head.

Fortunately, the bullet grazed its shoulder, sending a chunk of dead flesh flying against the undercarriage of the car. The jolt was enough to make the walker loosen its grip. Carol kicked free and stumbled to her feet, her bruised stomach screaming. The thing crawled out from under the car after her. It lifted its grisly face to gnash. Holding the gun like Daryl had taught her, in a firm two-handed grip to prevent too much movement, she fired again. To her great surprise, she hit her target almost in the center of the forehead.

The walker's head smashed face-down on the asphalt. Carol looked up to find a dozen and a half walkers breaking away from the herd and lurching in her direction at the sound of the gunshots. She couldn't run into the forest now. That would draw them after her little girl. So she weaved through the cars instead, back toward Darlene and T-Dog. She turned and fired three times more as she ran – in part for the satisfaction of hitting a moving target, which gave her a strange, almost shameful, thrill, and in part to draw the ruptured group back to the main herd. Her shots all landed in flesh, but none struck a brain. Walking and shooting at the same time was not a challenge she had even begun to consider. Still, the noise of her shots was enough to draw them all in the right direction.

When she rejoined T-Dog and Darlene, she left any necessary shooting to them. The couple fired only intermittently, when it seemed a walker might break off and wander in an unwanted direction, but when they did fire, they always brought one down. After they had walked backward together for a few minutes, drawing and funneling the walkers through a narrow passageway between the cars, Darlene told Carol, "Go on now! Run ahead, then get in them woods and backtrack to the group. Just don't shoot again. We'll keep drawin' 'em another ten or fifteen minutes, all the way past y'all. Get back to yer girl."

Carol didn't need to be told twice. The handgun in her right hand, she turned and ran as fast as she could for a good two blocks, until she was long free of the wreckage, and then she turned left and ran across the open road to the woods. Once there, she stayed just behind the treeline and walked as quietly as she could back toward the spot where the others had disappeared into the woods. She cast nervous, scattered glances through the trees toward the highway, but no more walkers broke off. The gunshots were like a siren's song to them.

When she was in sight of Rick's pick-up, she ducked further into the woods and wondered what to do. Which way had they all gone? Should she just wait by the vehicles?

Suddenly, a strong arm grabbed her, pulled her back behind a tree, and put a hand over her mouth. Daryl's breath was hot in her ear. "Shhh."

Her eyes widened, because she didn't feel Sophia's little arms around him, or her legs, as he pressed her back to his chest. She did feel the hard pillow of his muscles, however, and the softer cushion of his crotch against her lower back.

Maybe he sensed her fear, because he turned her body slightly and nodded behind another tree, where Sophia now sat piggy-backed on Glenn. That was when she noticed the two dead walkers on the forest floor several feet from them. She lowered her eyes and saw, too, the blood on the back of the hand that covered her mouth. Daryl had handed Sophia over so he could have his hands free to stab and defend the group.

"Gonna take away my hand," he whispered. "Quiet now. Don't draw 'em." She nodded.

When he loosened his grip on her, she turned to face him. His face was so close to hers, and, at this distance, his eyes were piercing. For a second, it disarmed her. "They're gone," she whispered. "We can go back now."

"Ya sure?"

She nodded.

Daryl let out a whistle that reminded Carol of a whip-poor-will singing on the windowsill in the house where she grew up. The walkers probably wouldn't be able to tell human from bird, and they couldn't catch birds, so the whistle would be of little interest to them.

The others emerged from behind the trees and gathered around. "Afraid we'd lost ya," Daryl said. He looked Carol up and down. She thought he was looking for wounds and was going to ask if she was hurt, but instead he said, "Where the hell's my crossbow?"

"I dropped it. On the road. I'm sorry. It's still there. A walker grabbed me by the ankle. I shot it, though. In the head." Carol felt an unfamiliar tinge of self-respect. "I killed it!"

"Better not be a scratch on 'er."

Carol was confused. "On the walker?"

"On my bow!"

Carol felt silly for her disappointment. Of course he wasn't _proud_ of her. She'd managed to kill one walker, after two shots, at very close range. Big deal.

"Come on," Rick said. "We've got to get those vehicles and get out of here."

As they jogged out of the woods, they could still hear intermittent gunshots in the distance, and they could see the tail of the herd far up the highway, a mile away now.

Daryl swept his crossbow up from the shoulder.

"How are they going to get away from that herd?" Andrea asked.

Carol didn't want to think about that. She'd gotten away because T-Dog and Darlene kept firing and drawing them off. But with no one to draw the walkers, wouldn't they just follow?

"They'll have to outrun them," Glenn said, shifting Sophia on his back. "It can be done. Those things can't run."

"But if they try to run _back_ ," Andrea said, "and the herd starts breaking off after them at separate points along the way, then – "

"- Stop yabbin'!" Daryl growled. "Get in the trucks!" He ran to mount his bike. Glenn put Sophia in back of Rick's truck and Carol climbed in after her. Glenn and Andrea took the newly discovered pick-up.

Glenn had to back the truck out from between two cars, which scraped the sides in a loud squeal. He turned the thing swiftly around, which flung the unbuckled Andrea against the side door. She cursed and clicked herself in.

Rick's pick-up and Daryl's motorcycle made a U-turn in the middle of the road, and the vehicles peeled away from the graveyard of cars.

[*]

Glenn glanced nervously at his watch. "It's been forty minutes." They had stopped after turning off the highway onto the side road where they'd agreed to meet up.

Daryl paced back and forth in front of the tailgate of Rick's pick-up. His head jerked up when the roar of a motorcycle sounded in the distance. When the couple arrived around the bend and T-Dog idled Darlene's motorcycle, Daryl said, "'Bout damn time. Took y'all long enough."

Darlene slid off from behind T-Dog. "Thank you, Darlene," she said, "for saving my ass. For yet a _third_ time."

Rick leaned out the busted driver's side window of the pick-up. "So are we moving on, or what?"

Daryl nodded. But before walking back to his bike, he paused and turned to Carol. "Good job on your kill."

She wasn't going to let the compliment - such as it was - go to her head.


	25. Sex Ed

"Does Daryl have any idea where he's going?" Lori asked.

"He said he did." Rick made another turn to follow the pick-up driven by T-Dog. Andrea was in the cab with him and Glenn had been relegated to the bed. T-Dog's pick-up was following Darlene's motorcycle, which was following Daryl's.

"I feel like he's leading us on a wild goose chase," Lori grumbled. "How many turns have we made?"

"He's probably avoiding areas that are likely to have a lot of walkers," Rick said, a little testily. "So we don't have a repeat of what happened this afternoon."

"Or maybe he's lost and doesn't want to admit it," Lori suggested. "Like a typical man."

"I _admit_ when I'm lost," Rick insisted.

"Mr. Dixon always knows what he's doing!" Sophia said defensively. "If he doesn't know he just doesn't do it."

Lori turned to look at Rick, and their bickering faces faded into smiles. They both chuckled. "I think someone has a crush," Lori said.

"Ewwwwww!" Carl whined. He got up on his knees on the bench seat and turned to face Sophia. "He's much too old for you, you know. You should crush on someone your own age."

"I do _not_ have a crush on Mr. Dixon!" Sophia insisted. "If _anyone_ has a crush on Mr. Dixon, its Mama."

Carol flushed red. "Sophia!" she scolded.

[*]

There were a lot of turns, some backtracking and reorienting to get past unnavigable areas, and a stop for a dinner of protein bars, canned pears, and Sunny Delight.

"Thought ya couldn't stand fake orange juice," Daryl said to Lori.

"Beggars can't be choosers," she replied.

After chowing down and taking turns relieving themselves, they headed off again. The sun was setting as they reached the bottom of the mountain and Daryl pulled over to the side of the road. They all got out of their vehicles to confer.

"Cabins are few miles up," Daryl said. "Be dark soon. Shouldn't try to clear 'em in the dark, but ought to 'fore we settle."

"So you think we should camp here and head up at sunrise?" Rick asked.

Daryl nodded.

Lori crossed her arms nervously over herself. "But is it safe down here?"

"Ain't seen a lot of walkers," Daryl said. "We'll leave the vehicles just inside the woods, hike in a bit."

On their backs, they carried their packs and a few sleeping bags and blankets they'd gathered from the abandoned cars as they made their way through the foliage. Daryl paused periodically to scoop up an empty, discarded can.

"What are you doing with those?" Lori asked.

"Gonna string 'em up. For an alarm."

Daryl, with the help of Glenn and T-Dog, used about eight trees to rope off a section of the forest floor, and they all dropped their bedding in the center of it.

Andrea began gathering sticks for a fire but Daryl said, "Don't bother. Got flashlights. Ain't cold tonight. Already ate. Fire might draw the walkers."

"Fine." She dropped the remaining sticks in a pile. "I was just trying to help, you know." She looked down at the pile of bedding. "We only have four sleeping bags and three blankets. And there's nine of us."

"Darlene and I can share a bag," T-Dog said. When she raised an eyebrow, he bowed slightly and said, "I mean if that's _okay_ with you. I wouldn't want to _assume_."

Darlene shot him an affectionate smirk. "'Spose I can tolerate you for a night."

"Sophia and I will share a sleeping bag," Carol offered.

"If we can have the big blanket, we can unzip a bag." Lori glanced from Rick to Carl. "And then all three of us can lay on top of that one."

Andrea looked at Glenn. "Just so there's no misunderstanding here, this is _not_ an invitation to _anything_. But we can unzip a sleeping bag to lie on and share that blanket." She motioned to a dark green roll.

Glenn grinned sheepishly.

"What about Mr. Dixon?" Sophia asked. "He won't get a sleeping bag."

"Be fine," he said. "Just roll up in that last blanket."

Sophia giggled. "Like a burrito?"

Carol was surprised to see Daryl smile. It wasn't an obvious smile. Only the top of one side of one lip twitched up, but his eyes shined a little in the glow of his flashlight. "Yeah, 'cept I don't taste good."

They arranged their bedding in a circle, feet out toward the woods, heads in toward each other, weapons at their sides. Daryl flung out his blanket between Carol and Sophia's sleeping bag and Rick, Lori, and Carl's bedding, but he didn't lie on it. He picked up his crossbow, wandered off a few feet toward a tree, and sat with his back to it.

"I'll take the second watch," Rick told him. "Wake me up in a few hours."

Daryl nodded.

[*]

Carol had found the best arrangement was to lie sideways at the very edge of the sleeping bag, facing Daryl's blanket. Sophia had to lie on her back, and she took up most of the bag. Feeling safe with Daryl on watch, Carol gradually drifted off to sleep.

A few hours later, a noise caused her eyes to shoot open, but she found it was only Daryl settling on top of his blanket. Rick got up to take his place on watch. Daryl grabbed one end of the blanket, pulled it around himself, and rolled toward her. He stared straight into her open eyes, with a look of surprise in his own, as if he hadn't expected to find her awake.

"Goodnight," she whispered. "Thanks for keeping watch."

"Mhmhm." He closed his eyes and rolled in the other direction.

[*]

Carol awoke near sunrise, not because of the light that had begun to filter through the trees, but because of the rattling cans. Anxiously, she sat up, only to find that Rick had already arisen from his seated position by the tree and readied his rifle, and Daryl was also standing with crossbow in hand.

"What is it?" Sophia asked.

"Shhh!" Carol put a finger against her lips.

By now, T-Dog and Darlene were also standing, Lori and Rick were sitting, and Glenn and Andrea were stirring awake beneath their shared blanket. Andrea had curled up against Glenn's side in the night and rested her head on his chest, and she now shot him an accusing look.

Two walkers strained against the twine. The string stretched toward the campsite as the cans continued to clang. Both walkers wore hiking boots on their feet and red bandannas around their necks. Daryl shot one with his bow, while T-Dog drove a knife into the brain of the other, so that the slaughter was quiet.

Daryl rolled their fallen bodies over and began to dig through their pockets.

"Anything interesting?" Glenn asked.

Daryl pulled out a handful of individual condom packages and tossed them toward the center of the camp. "T-Dog and Rick can fight over those."

Carl crawled forward, knelt, and picked one up. "What is it?" The boy turned the foil packet over in his hand.

Lori flushed and yanked the package from his grip. "Jesus, Daryl. Could you be more discreet?" She slid it in the back pocket of her jeans.

"Kid's twelve!" Daryl exclaimed. "How the hell can he not know by now?"

"What _is_ it?" Carl asked again.

T-Dog collected the other three scattered condoms and slipped them into his pants pocket.

"It's a condom," Rick said hastily. "It's something you use to make sure a woman doesn't get pregnant when you…do things that can make a woman pregnant."

"What things?" Carl asked.

"Sex," said Sophia as she reached for her crutches.

Everyone turned to look at the girl, except Daryl, who was still rummaging through the pockets.

"What's sex?" Carl asked.

"It's when a man sticks his penis in a woman's – "

Carol put her hand over Sophia's mouth. "Let his parents explain that to him, honey." She looked apologetically at Lori. "When she asked about it a couple of years ago, I just gave her a straightforward, biological explanation."

"So I see," Lori said.

Daryl stood from his crouched position and slid a hunting knife out of its sheath. He turned it over and examined the blade. "Couple of posers," he said. "Ain't never even been used." He sheathed it and slid it into his waistband, next to his own knife, which was clipped to the outside of his pants and stained black with blood. "Probably went hiking, got lost in the woods, and died of dehydration."

Carol stood and approached him. "You've already got a good knife. Can I have it?"

He looked at her skeptically, and then he looked down at the knife, and then he looked back up at her.

"You could teach me to use it first, if you want, if you don't think it's _safe_ just giving it to me." She hadn't meant to sound so irritated, but that skeptical look of his hit harder than she wanted to admit.

He took the knife out of his pants and handed it to her handle first. "Seen ya choppin' for cookin'. Think ya can manage to carry a knife without cuttin' off yer own fingers. Just surprised ya wanted it is all."

Carol took it from him and slid it into her pants, to the left of her handgun. "You're going to have to teach me how to kill with it, though."

"Mhmhm."

Daryl busied himself with packing up his gear, and Carol helped Sophia to her feet.

"You haven't told him about _sex_?" Rick whispered to Lori.

"I thought that was _your_ job," Lori shot back.

[*]

As they hiked back to the vehicles, Daryl fell beside Rick and gestured with his head to indicate he wanted some privacy. Rick got the message and slowed his footsteps until Lori and Carl were ahead of them. "Ya oughtta know," Daryl told him, "that this one family….they's the only people we found up there…but…uh….."

"What? Are they armed?" Rick asked. "Territorial?"

"Only saw one shotgun. Might could be more guns. Probably at least one huntin' rifle. But, uh…that ain't the problem."

"So what _is_ the problem?"

"If'n they see me, they might not be too friendly. 'Cause…uh…well….Merle kind of robbed 'em." Daryl didn't mention that he'd held his crossbow on the trembling wife and girls the whole time Merle was doing his song and dance. "He only took some bourbon and a few cigars. Didn't hurt no one. But when we's leavin', the man busted out onto the porch and opened fire on us."

Rick sighed. "Why didn't you tell me this _before_ I agreed to go to the cabins?"

"That wouldn't of stopped ya, would it? Just one family. It's safe up there. Ain't seen many walkers. Think these are second homes. And this guy, he weren't really dangerous. Think he was just defendin' his wife and kids."

"You and Merle robbed _children_?" Rick asked.

A line jumped in Daryl's jaw as shame morphed to anger. "Ain't hurt no one! Kids don't need no damn bourbon and cigars!"

Carol turned back and looked quizzically in their direction. Daryl started walking slower, so the others would fall further ahead, and she'd be less likely to hear. Carol sure as hell wouldn't think he was "every bit as good as Rick" if she knew he'd had a crossbow pointed at a couple of girls younger than Sophia.

Rick shook his head.

"Look, sorry we did it." Daryl didn't try to say it was just Merle this time. "Didn't know no one was alive in there. Busted in, and in a second, had my crossbow on 'em and he had a shotgun on us. It just happened."

"Could have made peace," Rick said.

"The way _we_ look? Doubt that. They assumed we was there to rape and pillage from the second we busted in. If I'd of lowered my bow, he'd have blown my head off. And I don't blame him neither. I'd of done the same, if I saw me and I had girls to protect."

"You could have backed out without taking anything."

Daryl clenched and unclenched his fist. "Yeah, could of. Didn't." He scratched his cheek. "So, anyhow, I might should stay back when y'all check _that_ cabin. And if they's still there, _you_ make peace with 'em. Tell 'em I's a'right."

"Well, thanks for the heads up. Finally." Rick strode angrily ahead to rejoin Lori and Carl.

[*]

The quaint cabins were spread out over miles of dirt road. The group would drive, park near one, clear it of walkers, and then pack up any useful supplies they found before driving on, inching their way up the mountain a little at a time.

They'd agreed they would clear all of the cabins to the top of the mountain before claiming any for themselves. Darlene, T-Dog, Rick, and Daryl did the clearing, while Glenn and Andrea stood guard at the vehicles with Carol, Lori, and the kids.

The current cabin had nothing to offer. The kitchen cabinets were bare except for dusty dishes and glasses. Rick shut the door to the empty pantry. "Nothing worth taking here."

He and Daryl wandered back to the living room, where Darlene started opening the drawers of the end tables. She pulled out and held up a _Ranger Rick_ magazine. "'Member when Billy Ray used to get these?" she asked Daryl. "He'd collect 'em, and when Merle found out, he made fun of 'em so bad, that Billy Ray piled 'em all up in the back of Merle's pick-up and set 'em on fire in there."

"I 'member Merle kickin' his ass for doin' something' to his pick-up," Daryl said. He'd been nine and a half at the time, his cousin Billy Ray was almost eleven, and Merle had just gotten back from juvie. "Didn't know that was how it started."

"I miss Billy." She shoved the _Ranger Rick_ back in the drawer. "He was one of the few good ones in that hell hole."

"Yeah? Why wouldn't ya get together with him when he asked then?"

"'Cause Brandie had an awful crush on him."

"Another woman ain't never stopped ya 'fore," Daryl said.

"Yeah, but she was my best girlfriend. And they was cute together, when I finally _got_ them together."

"Matchmaker, matchmaker," T-Dog sang and then planted a little kiss on Darlene's cheek.

[*]

Carol leaned against the passenger's door of Rick's pick-up and watched the clearing crew exit the cabin, no bloodier than the last time. There must not have been any walkers in there.

"Hope they found some candy," Sophia said through the open rear window of the truck. Because of her leg, she wasn't bothering to get out at every stop. Carl, who was sitting in the driver's seat and pretending to drive, complete with sound effects, said, "If so, we split it 50/50. Fair and square."

Glenn took a hopeful step toward the nearing group, only to be greeted with a shrug by Rick. "Nothing worth taking."

Daryl walked over to Carol. "C'mon. Gonna teach ya how to clear a place while they go on up to the next one."

Lori, who was leaned against the pick-up beside Carol, smirked. "Sounds romantic," she whispered.

Carol knew Lori was joking, but she felt a small thrill of pride to think Daryl wanted to tech her. He wouldn't bother if he thought she was incapable of learning the skill. "I asked Daryl to start teaching me," Carol explained. "At the last cabin. Someday I may have to clear a room or something. And I hate just standing out here, feeling useless."

"We aren't being useless," Lori insisted. "We both helped pack up at the last cabin."

In addition to a shotgun, two rifles, and nine boxes of ammunition, they'd found several cases of bottled water, five 12-packs of Coke, a bottle of whiskey, two bottles of rum, three bottles of vodka, and six cases of beer. It looked like the former inhabitants of the cabin - three young men whose decaying bodies were dressed in Georgia State sweatshirts - had been on a mostly liquid diet. The only other contents of the kitchen were five moldy, wet, and soggy pizzas in the freezer, two jars of dill pickles in the fridge, and eight cans of Chef Boy R Dee in the pantry. Carol had put the ravioli and pickles in an empty cardboard box and carried them out to the pick-up. She hardly considered that a worthy contribution to the group.

"Ya want me to show ya how or not?" Daryl asked.

"I do." Carol glanced back in the pick-up at Sophia. "You go on with the others, sweetheart," she told her daughter. "We'll catch up."


	26. Clearing Lessons

What Daryl _didn't_ tell Carol was that he _needed_ to linger behind, because the next cabin belonged to the family he and Merle had robbed. A private lesson seemed as good an excuse as any to stay behind.

"Should have yer gun loaded and ready," he told her as the pick-ups and motorcycles pulled away.

Carol drew out the handgun and made sure she had one round in the chamber.

"How many bullets ya got?" Daryl asked.

Carol felt foolish. "I uh….I'm not sure."

"Ya should always know. Keep count."

"Well, you loaded it last," she said defensively. "I don't know how many were in there when you handed it to me yesterday morning."

"Twelve."

"Then seven," she said. "There are seven left."

She'd fired five bullets but only killed one walker? Daryl almost said something harsh, but he stopped himself. He remembered when he was first learning to shoot, and his father's insults had made him want to crawl into himself. He'd stopped asking his father for advice. He'd turned to his Uncle Clevus instead, who never yelled at him when he was trying to learn something new.

"A'ight," he said. "Now put it back and draw yer knife instead. When yer clearin' a house, ya want to stab walkers, one room at a time. If'n ya shoot, it'll draw 'em all down on ya at once."

"Then why did you tell me to have my gun loaded and ready?"

"In case ya run into a live man 'stead of a walker. Someone bigger than ya." Which would be just about _any_ man. "There's plenty men in this world be happy to - " He stopped suddenly. There was no need to say that out loud. He didn't like to think about what might happen to Carol if some man without a conscience got a hold of her.

Carol seemed to understand him. She put the hand on the butt of her pistol. "The great equalizer."

[*]

Carol felt nervous as they paused at the top of the porch stairs, even though she knew this was just a dry run and that the house had already been cleared. "I'm a little afraid of embarrassing myself," she admitted.

"Ya know what's embarassin'?" he asked. "Not even tryin' to learn. That's what my Uncle Clevus used to say."

Before they went through the front door, he unsheathed his own knife to show her the proper grip. He demonstrated the angle for stabbing, and then had her go through the motions. "Nah, nah. Ya gotta get a better angle." He sheathed his knife again and stepped behind her, reached around, and put his hands over hers on the handle. He forced her fingers into position and guided her through the motion of stabbing. She tried not to notice the feel of his muscles against her arms, or the warmth of his hands over hers. He stepped away. "Now show me."

She went through the motions.

"Better," he said. "Ya got the angle right, but yer still too timid. Too jittery. Got to thrust like ya mean it. Thrust good and hard."

Carol couldn't help it. She tried so hard not to, but she giggled.

"What's so damn funny?"

"That just sounded vaguely sexual."

"What the hell is this? Junior high? Ain't nothin' sexual 'bout slayin' a damn walker. Ya better be serious or yer gonna be dead!"

Carol nodded seriously and pressed her lips very tightly into a stern a line, willing them not to curve into a smile, but a laugh burst through her lips like a fart.

Daryl frowned at her.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm taking this seriously. I really am. Talk me through it."

He growled, like a ruffled puppy. "Pay attention."

Daryl talked her through the steps – how to open the doors, where to look, what to listen for. He made her burst in through the front door and scan in every direction. When they reached the living room, he made her practice stabbing on a throw pillow on the couch.

Carol got an unexpected thrill out of ripping the fabric open after the initial plunge. She tore her knife down in a jagged line through the entire frilly pillow.

"Stop that!" Daryl barked. "Once ya've stabbed 'em, just twist yer way in and out the brain right quick. No need to drag it down like that."

"Sorry," she muttered.

He held up another pillow, at about the level of a stooped over, five-foot-ten walker, but away from his own body. "Have at it."

Feeling more confidence now that she at least knew how to hold and angle the knife, she lunged forward at the pillow. At the last second, though, he yanked it aside, so that the blade of her knife almost grazed his wrist. He dropped the pillow, seized her free wrist, jerked her toward himself, and bent his head. The light nibble of his teeth against her neck made her yelp. It didn't hurt at all. He barely grazed her skin. It was the sheer unexpectedness of the action that made her cry out.

He lifted his head until his lips were an inch from her ear. "Yer dead," he whispered. She could smell his breath - a strange potpourri of smoke and mint - and feel its warmth on her cheek. He stepped back. "Don't forget they can move."

She rubbed her neck in the spot where his mouth had touched her. If he had been any other man, she would have been sure he was coming onto her. But he wasn't any other man. "They don't move _that_ fast," she insisted.

He went over to the couch and plucked up another pillow. "Do it again."

"I'm not sure this is such a good idea. If you move again, I might end up stabbing you."

"Doubt that. Now a - " Her knife was in the pillow before he finished his word. He pulled it slowly off the blade, and a single feather drifted out of the tear and landed on the carpet by her feet. "Not bad, but ya ain't gonna be able to distract the walkers by runnin' yer mouth."

"I can find other ways to distract them though. The same way you'd distract a dog - throw a small object, or create a sound in another direction."

"Yeah. True enough. Now let's go clear the bedrooms."

When they got to the second bedroom, Carol could hear clawing on the inside of the white wooden door. The sound was similar to that of a trapped cat, but it was too high. Human height. Her voice wavered as she said, "I thought you cleared this house already."

"We did," he told her. "'Cept for the one walker we trapped in there. Yer gonna clear that one."

"I...I'm not ready for that."

Daryl unsheathed his knife. "I got yer back, if'n ya need me. Now go on. Open it."

Carol gripped her knife tighter and reached for the door knob. The fake silver was slightly warm in her hand as she began to twist it open.

[*]

Carol apologized for the third time as Daryl ran a well stained rag along his knife. Her blade was still clean and shiny, but his was wet with freshly drawn blood.

"Just don't get it." He re-sheathed his knife and started folding up the rag so the blood was on the inside. "Ya brained that other 'un with the iron. And ya didn't even have no one backin' ya up! So why'd ya freeze this time?"

When Carol had thrown open the bedroom door and seen that walker's slipping face, its hollow eyes, its bloody teeth lunging toward her, she'd gone limp. Daryl had kicked the undead creature back into the room, yelling "Stab it! Stab it!" as it stumbled toward them again, and still she hadn't moved. In the end, it was Daryl's blade that pierced its brain.

"I don't know." Carol snapped the leather case down over the knife she'd returned to her belt and looked at the open-mouthed creature lying dead on the plush carpet. She felt like a complete failure. "I guess because I didn't have Sophia with me this time. Instinct kicked in that day. But _you_ don't need defending, so..." She shrugged. "This time, I didn't have anyone to defend."

"Had yerself! Ain't ya worth defendin'?"

His question cut her, because it made her realize she _didn't_ think of herself as someone worth defending. If the group lost her tomorrow, that would mean one less mouth to feed, one less ignorant person to teach, one less slowpoke to wait for. The words vomited out of her: "I'm no one to anyone. I'm a burden."

"Yer a hell of a fuckin' lot to Sophia!" He shoved the folded rag deep into his back pocket. "Don't freeze next time! Got to defend yerself. When ya defend yerself, ya help the person behind ya. And ya help the people yer gonna come back alive to. Hell, ya do yer part for this group! Ya ain't no burden. Do all the cookin'. Most the washin'. Sew on buttons and shit."

"I don't think my button-sewing skills are going to get us through the apocalypse."

"Yeah, then who's are? _Glenn's_?"

"I meant..." Carol laughed, because she realized suddenly that he really _did_ see sewing skills as useful, as something he'd actually want in his package of skills if he was building his own survival team instead of just stumbling into one. "You're right. I'll do better next time."

"Ya damn well better. Come on. Let's keep clearin'."

[*]

Daryl talked Carol through clearing the bathroom and kitchen before dragging the walker's body out back alone and rolling it down the hill. He was irritated that she thought of herself as a burden. Carol had useful skills precisely because they were skills he _didn't_ have. Rick and Darlene and T-Dog could shoot well, but so could he. Andrea could fish, but so could he. Glenn could run, but so could he. What Daryl _couldn't_ do was make squirrel taste like something better than squirrel or magically get almost all of the blood out of his pants or sew on a goddamn button without poking himself with the needle.

Want to talk about burdens? Lori couldn't do shit. The kids were burdens, too, of course, but that was all right. Adults were _supposed_ to take care of kids. Kids weren't supposed to take care of adults, the way Daryl had been forced to take care of his own mama that last summer she was alive - splashing cold water on her face in the morning to wake her up, cleaning up her vomit from the night before, taking out the empty bottles, bringing her coffee and dry cereal in bed. Daryl's daddy just kept saying she was "sick," when he was home to say anything at all. Will Dixon didn't use words like "depression" or "self-medication" or "alcoholism," though when Mama passed out that day with a cigarette in her mouth, and the cabin burned down, Daryl's daddy did say, _Dumb bitch finally drank her damn self to death._

Now, Daryl watched the dead walker's body tumble and slide down the rocky hill behind the cabin. Maybe that man had been somebody to someone once, but Daryl had stopped thinking much about that. He didn't see the echo of their former humanity behind their eyes anymore. He just stomped them out like an insect - but even more indifferently than an insect - because even insects had a value, some role to play in nature's complex cycle. But not these things. They didn't exist for any purpose at all.

Daryl turned and walked across the deck to the sliding glass door of the cabin to go inside and find Carol. He didn't know if Rick would be done talking to that family yet. He should probably think of another excuse to kill time.


	27. Killing Time

When Daryl came back inside the cabin, he found Carol in the kitchen, turning off the faucet. "There's running water!" she cried with excitement.

"Told ya, they's on a well system. Electric pumps ain't workin' though. All the tanks gonna run dry 'fore long. But we can turn the pumps on every now and then with a generator. Refill the tanks." They'd found two generators so far while clearing the cabins, and he knew there was one in the shed next to the cabin where he and Merle had stayed. How much gasoline they could spare for them was another matter. "Most of these cabins got manual water pumps out back, too. Get drinkin' water at least."

"Do you think we could get a warm bath?"

"Heat a kettle up on a wood stove, add boiling water to a cold bath, sure. Cain't do it every damn day, though. Got to conserve."

"Once a week would be nice," she said, as if she was fantasizing about a luxury beach vacation. "People can bathe together in the tubs and save water, too."

Daryl flushed.

"I meant…me and Sophia. Rick and Lori. Not…" She laughed. "Not you and me. Of course."

Daryl looked down at the tile floor. He walked quickly off and jerked open the refrigerator. There was a jug of spoiled milk, some moldy sandwiches, and a six pack of Budweiser, which he grabbed by the plastic rings. He clunked the beer cans down on the counter top and worked one out before cracking it open. He didn't look at Carol again until she said, "Are you going to offer me one?"

He gestured to the pack with his can. "Think ya can manage to open yer own."

She yanked out a can. "I just didn't want to take one of yours without asking first."

"All commies now, I reckon," he said. "Gonna share everythin' from here on out."

"Except husbands and wives."

Daryl walked away. Why did she keep saying sexual shit? Did she _mean_ to? Not that what she'd just said was particularly sexual. It just made him _think_ of sex. He slumped down at the kitchen table.

Carol sat across from him, took a sip of the beer, and winced. "Too warm." But she took another sip anyway. "We should probably start walking up to join the others."

"Will. Soon as we's done drinkin'." He needed to allow some more time to pass. Why had he used Carol as his excuse to stay behind? Now he was stuck killing time with her. Being alone with her made him nervous, which didn't make any damn sense at all. She wasn't a herd of walkers. She was just a woman.

Daryl pounded his beer, belched, crumpled the can in his fist, and tossed it into an open, empty trash can at the edge of the counter. It rimmed the rectangular top and slid to the bottom with a clink.

"Did you play basketball in high school?" Carol asked.

Daryl rose, grabbed himself another beer, and then leaned back against the end of the counter, facing her. At least she hadn't asked if he'd made any _home runs_ in high school, or something equally suggestive. "No." He popped the beer open with a hiss and took a sip.

"I was on the varsity volleyball team."

Beer spewed out from between his lips in a sputtering laugh. Droplets splattered on the floor but, fortunately, didn't reach Carol. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand.

"What's so funny about that?" she asked defensively.

"Nothin'," he said. "Just cain't picture it is all." Except he _did_ picture it. And suddenly, the picture wasn't so funny. He thought of Carol in those short volleyball shorts, one of those, tight, sleeveless shirts, jumping up, and…Jesus. What the hell was wrong with him lately? Must just be the stress. His mind had been going haywire with distracting fantasies these past few days.

"Did you play any sports in high school?" she asked.

"I _look_ like a team player?"

"No," Carol said. "But I bet you'd have been great on the archery team."

"Didn't have no archery team. Didn't even have a _football_ team. Hundred twenty kids in my whole damn high school."

"Three towns fed into my high school, so we had seven hundred in mine. I take it you didn't go to your senior prom?"

"Did _you_?" he spat. "With _Ed?_ " Daryl wished he hadn't said it once the words were out, but he was irritated with her quesitons.

Her face tightened, like she'd eaten a lemon. "Not with Ed, no. I had a different boyfriend back then."

Because he couldn't manage to say he was sorry for asking, he asked another question, less gruffly this time. At least he _tried_ to ask it less gruffly. "Have fun?"

"Yes, actually. It was a magical night, at least until the end."

Daryl let his curiosity get the better of him. "What happened at the end?"

"Well, we'd been dating two years at that point. I was in love. But when he dropped me off at home, he told me he'd been accepted to the University of California. _California._ It was like another country."

"And that was it?"

"He promised we'd stay together, that he'd be back on breaks, but when he left town a month later, he didn't even leave his new address."

"Dumb ass. Could of chased college tail and still kept you at home."

"Gee, thanks. That would have been flattering for me."

Daryl swept his can in an arc. "I just meant..." What he hell _had_ he meant?

"Is that what _you_ did? Kept your high school girlfriend back home and then _chased tail_ whenever you moved for work?"

Daryl took a long swig from the beer can. "Never had a high school girlfriend. Dropped out halfway through tenth grade."

"They let you do that?" she asked.

"They who?"

Carol shrugged. "The school. The state. Your family."

"No one came lookin' for me, if that's what you mean. My mama was long dead by then. Merle was off in the military. So it was just me and my old man."

"What did you do when you weren't in school?"

"Worked. Two jobs, thirty hours each, cash, under the table. I was savin' up so I could get the hell out my daddy's house. But he died 'fore I had enough money, so…" He shrugged.

"I did well enough in high school, but college was never in the cards for me. My parents died before I graduated. The house was mortgaged to the hilt. I went straight to work. But it was hard to keep up with the bills."

"That why ya married Ed?"

The beer can clinked as she set it down on the kitchen table. "He promised he'd take care of me. And he did. At first. We fought. He yelled. He was controlling. But he didn't start hitting me until after we had Sophia." She ran a finger up the warm, aluminum side of the can. "He never wanted children. He thought I tricked him. That I tampered with the birth control. He started drinking more after Sophia was born. Going out more. He hit me for the first time when she was a baby and I couldn't get her to stop crying."

"And why the hell didn't ya walk out right then and there?"

"Walk out _where_?" she asked. "My parents were gone. I never had any siblings. I didn't have a job anymore. I didn't have any money of my own. And I had a baby."

"Baby's all the more reason to walk out."

"It's not as easy as you imagine," she said. "You have no idea – "

"- I got some idea," he interrupted her.

Carol sat back in her chair. She rested her hands on her knees. Quietly, she said, "Your mom didn't walk out on your dad either."

" _What?_ "

"I saw the scars. In the nursing home, when I brought you breakfast. You tried to hide them, but...I saw."

In the silence that followed, Daryl could hear only the sound of his own breath, the slosh of the beer as he swallowed hard, and the aluminum of the can crunching in on itself as he crushed it with one bare hand.

"I never let him hurt Sophia." Carol's voice trembled slightly, "I swear."

Daryl tossed the can in the trash. "Time to go." He slid the last three beers off the counter by one of the broken plastic rings and slung them over his shoulder like a dead squirrel.

[*]

Daryl was walking angrily ahead of Carol, his crossbow on one shoulder and the beer slung over the handlebars of his motorcycle, which he was pushing rather than riding up the road. He didn't seem to be in a hurry to catch up with Rick and the others, but he sure was in a hurry to get away from her.

One minute she'd thought they'd been connecting, maybe even forging something like a friendship – in so far as Daryl was capable of friendship - and the next she felt like he was accusing her of being a terrible mother. And then she'd said what she'd said...and he'd shut down.

She realized now what he really thought of her - that she was a complete coward. A spineless woman who had stayed with a man she should have left, a selfish weakling who had put her child at risk because she was too chicken to do anything, just like she'd been too chicken to stab that walker behind the door.

The truth was...Daryl _despised_ her.

Suddenly he stopped moving. It took Carol a moment to notice, and she slammed right into the rear tire of the bike. She stumbled back and rubbed her bruised knee.

Daryl kicked down the stand and let the motorcycle lean on its side. He turned to face her. "Robbed this next house."

Carol stopped rubbing her knee. She stood straight. "What?"

"Me and Merle, when we's here last. Robbed this next house. That's why we's down here. So Rick can make peace with 'em, if they's still alive, 'fore they see me."

So he hadn't really wanted to teach her anything after all. He'd just been avoiding a confrontation, and she was his excuse. He probably hadn't even expected her to learn one thing. "Wait. You mean…you robbed the _people_ in the house?" she asked.

"Family. Ma, pa, two little girls. Even younger than Sophia."

"They were still there? Still alive?"

"Busted in, expectin' walkers. Next thing I know, got my bow trained on 'em. Held it on all four of 'em the whole damn time Merle was lookin' round. Didn't take nothin' they needed to survive – just bourbon and cigars – but they's trembling. I made that mama and those little girls tremble." His blue eyes grew almost gray. "'Cause _that's_ the kind of man I am, Carol. I ain't every bit as good as T-Dog like ya said. I ain't every bit as good as Rick."

Carol had backed up, and now he took another step closer. "Yer right," he said, "'bout those scars. My daddy beat me and my mama pretended like she didn't know it was happenin'. Same way I stood there pointin' that bow pretendin' like I didn't have nothin' to do with what Merle was doin'. But I did. 'Cause I could of stopped it. Lots of things I could of stopped Merle from doin' over the years, and I ain't never even tried. Lots of things I could of stopped my daddy from doin', and I just curled up and took it. 'Cause I's a coward just like my mama. And I make little kids tremble, just like my daddy."

He whirled, kicked up the stand violently, and rolled the bike onward. Carol could almost hear the pebbles in the dirt road crunching beneath his boots. He wasn't angry because he despised _her_. He was angry because he despised _himself_. "You don't make Sophia tremble," Carol called after him.

Daryl's footsteps stilled. He stood there, with his back to her.

"She adores you," Carol said. "And Carl looks up to you, you know. He's always trying to imitate you. Those kids…you don't make them tremble."

The kickstand went down again. The bike leaned like a weary old man on a cane. Daryl turned and walked back toward her. "'Cause I saved Sophia's life. If'n I hadn't done that, I'd be nothin' to 'er."

"But you _did_ save her life," Carol insisted. " _You_ did that. You want to pretend you didn't? You want to pretend you didn't track us down, risk your life, walk half a mile with her in your arms, get shot to bring her to the help she needed? You want to take back your generosity? Well you take it back then. But don't expect her not to be grateful. Don't expect her to believe you're a bad person." She jabbed a finger at his chest, where his shirt covered his heart. Blinking, he looked down at her fingertip against him. "Don't expect her to believe you don't have a good heart in there, Daryl Dixon. And don't expect _me_ to believe it either."

Daryl put his face close to hers, so close that she flinched. "I ain't who ya think I am!"

Carol stood still for a moment, her neck stretched away from him, while he stepped back and studied her, like a boy who has just poked a hornet's nest with a stick, waiting for some reaction.

She turned her face slowly toward his again. Calmly and deliberately, she said, "Or maybe you aren't who _you_ think you are." She walked past him, brushing his arm as she did so. It was a while before she heard the click of the stand, the crunching roll of the bike's tires, and his footsteps following her.

[*]

The bike was heavy, but Daryl didn't want to arrive too soon. He continued to push it up the hill, bent over, his back beginning to ache. The pick-up trucks and motorcycles came into view a little ways down from the cabin. Daryl could see Rick's back. The man's hands were up, and he seemed to be moving slightly, talking, like he was trying to reason with someone. That was when Daryl saw the lumbering figure standing behind Lori, his muscular right arm wrapped around her front to hold her back against himself. The arm ended in a sharp metal blade where a hand should be. The blade rested on Lori's shoulder, an inch from her neck, and against her head was pressed the barrel of a handgun.

Daryl dropped the motorcycle. It thudded to the gravely earth, the metal scratching against the pebbles. The beer cans were crushed beneath the handle bars. One was punctured and liquid oozed out, darkening the brown earth.

"Merle?" Daryl shouted. And then he began to run.


	28. He's Your Brother, But He's Not Good for

"Well, well, well," Merle chanted when Daryl slowed to a stop a few feet from him. "So Officer Friendly wasn't lyin'! Ya _are_ with 'em."

Daryl's joy at seeing his brother alive was overwhelmed by a wave of anxiety. What kind of mess had Merle gotten himself into now? "What the hell ya doin', man? Put the gun down!"

"I ain't puttin' the gun down, Daryl." Merle pushed it closer against Lori's temple. She closed her eyes and clinched her teeth, as if bracing for the shot. Rick shifted on his feet. Darlene, T-Dog, and Glenn all had their rifles trained on Merle. "Not until they _all_ put their guns down."

By now Carol was at the pick-up. She crawled inside to comfort Sophia and Carl.

Daryl looked around at the drawn weapons. "Put 'em down," he said.

"Hell no!" T-Dog yelled.

"Yeah, Daryl," Glenn agreed. "I'm not putting down the gun until he does. God knows what he's going to do."

"Darlene, c'mon, put it down," Daryl said.

"No sir," Darlene told him.

"Ya know Merle!"

"I _do_ know Merle. That's why I ain't puttin' the gun down."

"You know he ain't never killed no one!"

"He's got a _gun_ to Lori's _head_ ," Darlene called back. "You overlook that little detail?"

Inside the pick-up, Sophia and Carl began to whimper. Those whimpers worked their way under Daryl's skin and made him want, even more desperately, for this stand-off to end. "Merle, man, just put the gun down! A'ight? These people ain't gonna shoot ya. Vouch for 'em."

"Vouch for 'em?" Merle echoed. "You _vouch_ for 'em? What, are you _with_ these losers now?"

"Merle, just...settle down now. Put the gun down."

"Ain't happenin', baby brother. Do you know this woman's husband tried to _kill_ me?" He tightened his grip on Lori.

"I didn't try to kill you." The usual cool in Rick's voice was betrayed by a slight tremor.

"You chained me to a roof and left me for dead!"

"We didn't leave you there." Rick was too obviously forcing himself to sound calm. "We went back for you. Tell him, Daryl."

"Rick and T-Dog and Glenn and me," Daryl agreed. "We all came back for ya. But you was gone. Tracked ya…but ya just went off somewhere, opposite direction of the camp."

"Yeah, dumb ass, 'cause I couldn't go back to that camp! Not with all these people gunnin' for me! Figured you'd think to look for me here, where we started. And here you are. But I didn't think you'd bring the whole damn cavalry with you!"

"Just put the gun down, Merle," Daryl insisted. "We'll work this all out."

"Work _what_ out? You look live you've gone native, brother!"

 _Gone native._ Like it was impossible for him to be with anyone but Melre. Hell, maybe Darlene was right. Maybe Merle _didn't_ want him to "make new friends." And maybe Carol was right, too. Maybe Daryl was better than his roots. Because he sure as hell would never pull this shit Merle was pulling now. Daryl swung his crossbow off his shoulder and leveled it at his brother. "Put. It. Down."

Merle chuckled. "Et tu, Brute?"

Andrea's mouth fell open slightly.

"Yeah, blondie," Merle called to her, "know me some Shakespeare. Does that surprise you, sweetheart?" He returned his attention back to Daryl. "The kingdom is _ours_. All these cabins up here, with all this shit in 'em. Let's kick these usurpers out!"

Daryl leaned forward with his crossbow.

"Let's make 'em all run back down the mountain, find their own damn camp! And then you and me can take over this place. Like we did before."

Daryl's finger inched toward the trigger. "Drop it, Merle."

"Just you and me, brother. You and me against the world! C'mon now! Say it with me!"

Daryl began to lower his bow.

"Yeah, that's the spirit! Put it down and say it with me! You and me, broth-Aaaaaah! Fuck!" Merle loosened his grip, and Lori burst free from him and ran into Rick's open arms.

As Merle lowered his handgun to reach for the arrow lodged in his boot, T-Dog and Glenn tackled him. When the handgun flew onto the ground, Andrea scooped it up. T-Dog put a knee on Merle's chest to keep him down, while Glenn stood on his bladed arm.

Merle turned his head to glare at Daryl. "What the fuck ya do?"

"Don't be a pussy," Daryl told him, just like Merle had when Daryl was nine, and Merle had accidentally run over his foot with his motorcycle. "Darlene'll patch ya right up."

[*]

While Merle lay pinned on the ground and Darlene cut him out of his boot to check his foot, Rick drew Daryl aside for a private conversation.

"This is what happened on that rooftop in Atlanta." Rick pointed in Merle's direction. "He was _out of control._ Do you understand why I did what I did now?"

"Mhmh," Daryl murmured noncommittally. "Weren't no family in that cabin?"

"Merle was in that cabin when I knocked," Rick explained. "He got the drop on me first. Pulled me inside. I tried to reason with him, but eventually he just brought me out here at gunpoint. I kicked his knee and got loose for a moment, but then he grabbed Lori."

"What was he doin' in _this_ cabin?" If Merle was waiting for Daryl to find him, why hadn't he waited in the cabin where'd they'd stayed the first time?

"Well I don't think he was here to try to sell them Bibles, Daryl."

"Mhm."

"He came up the _other side_ of the mountain from us. The van he stole broke down at the top. He hiked the rest of the way down to the cabins. And then let's just say he came here for some more bourbon and cigars. He found the family already dead and turned. So he shot the walkers and threw the bodies out back. He showed them to me. They'd clearly turned. So I don't think he's lying about that."

"Of course he ain't!" Daryl shouted. Then he lowered his voice. "What? Ya think my brother's a murderer?"

"I think your brother is a powder keg with a short fuse that can light like that." Rick snapped his fingers. "He put a _gun_ to my _wife's_ head! And a _blade_ to her _neck_."

"He's probably just still upset y'all chained him to that roof." Daryl didn't know who he was trying to convince at this point, Rick or himself. Merle _was_ volatile. It was how he'd gotten dishonorably discharged from the Army, after all, snapping and beating another man for insulting his mother. After that, Merle's volatility lost them seventeen jobs in fourteen years.

But Daryl also remembered a time when Merle had been as steady as an oak, those days when Daddy would come home angry after a bad day at work, just looking for someone weaker to take his rage out on. He'd reach for that thick, worn belt he left hung on a nail on the kitchen wall, the one with the jagged studs wedged into the leather. And then Will Dixon would tower over Daryl, who was just a little boy then, so much smaller than Merle, and tell him, "Time to go for a walk out back with Daddy." And then Merle, calm as the Georgia pines on a windless day, would say, "Let's you and me go for a walk, Daddy. Just you and me." As far as Daryl knew, Merle never fought back, until that summer after he got out of juvie, when he snapped and beat their father with his bare fists until the man's nose and collar bone were broken. After that, Merle ran, and Daryl didn't see him again until he was almost seventeen himself.

"Ya latched Merle to a pipe."

"Yes," Rick replied, "because he _beat_ T-Dog, put a _gun_ to all of our heads, and insisted he was _taking over_! Do you not see a pattern of dangerous behavior here, Daryl?"

"Mhmh."

"He can't stay here at these cabins with us. I will always be afraid for my wife and child. Carol will be afraid for Sophia. For herself."

Daryl had been looking at the ground, but his head snapped up at this mention of Carol and the little girl.

 _"Every one of us_ will always be looking over our shoulders. _Always_. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"Mhmh."

"Is that a yes or a no?" Rick demanded.

"Understand." Daryl ran a hand over his stubble. "A'right then. Just let us have one of the pick-ups. Couple gas cans. Some food. Water. Merle's handgun back. Some extra ammo. And then we'll be on our way."

"That's not what I meant, Daryl. _You_ don't have to go with him. You're welcome to stay with us. You've _earned_ your place with us."

"He's my _brother_ , Rick. What the hell ya expect me to do? And how the hell ya expect to get him to leave this mountain _alone_?" Daryl turned on his heels and walked back toward Merle. He crouched down beside his big brother just as Darlene finished splinting Merle's big toe and wrapping it to his long toe.

Merle raised his neck to bare his teeth at Daryl. "Cain't beleive ya shot me!"

"Hell, ya ran over my foot once."

"Not on purpose!"

Andrea walked over and set a pair of boots beside Merle to replace the one Darlene had cut off. "These should fit you."

Merle sneered. "Thanks, Princess. Wanna slide 'em on for me? Real tight and slow?"

Andrea walked away.

Darlene patted Merle's knee. "All done now. Bleeding's stopped. Those are some damn sturdy boots. Daryl just took off a tiny bit of your big toe. No big deal. Probably gonna hurt awhile. Might have some trouble with your balance 'til ya get used to it. But you're tougher 'n nails. Sure you'll figure it out." She stood.

Merle raised his neck to nod at T-Dog's knee on his chest. "Mind tellin' your house boy to get the hell off me now?"

"C'mon, T-baby," Darlene said.

T-Dog jerked his knee off Merle's chest, gave the supine man a long, cold look, and then followed Darlene away.

As Merle sat up and worked on the new boots, Daryl said, "Listen. We gonna let these people have these cabins."

Merle yanked his laces tight. " _What?_ "

"We's gonna take a pick-up and some supplies. And yer bike. Saved yer bike back for ya." He pointed at the motorcycle lying on its side a little ways down the dirt road.

"I did miss my baby," Merle admitted with a grin. "But what the hell ya mean, leave 'em these cabins?"

"What we need these cabins for? We's nomads, you and me. Let's go to Kentucky, do that bourbon trail. 'Member how we was gonna do that after we robbed the camp?"

"That was my idea," Merle reminded him. "The bourbon trail was _my_ idea."

"Sure was. Damn good idea, too." Daryl stood from his crouched position, reached out, and grabbed Merle's good hand to pull him to his feet. Merle winced and leaned more heavily on the foot that hadn't been grazed. "Just you and me, brother," Daryl told him. "You and me 'gainst the whole damn world."

[*]

Merle was still disarmed. Daryl had agreed not to give him back his handgun until they were beyond the bottom of the mountain. They emptied the bed of one of the pick-ups and tied Merle's motorcycle down there, and then Merle climbed in on the passenger's side while Daryl re-loaded some selected supplies.

Darlene sauntered up to him. "You really leavin' with him?"

"Got to. Ain't gonna leave on his own."

"What about Carol?"

Daryl tied three cans of gas into place in the bed. "She'll understand."

"And _what_ will she understand, exactly? Choosing to stick with a man you know you oughtta leave?"

Daryl ignored her and tightened the ropes.

"You were teaching Carol. She was learning. What's she gonna do now?"

" _You_ teach her," Daryl put some loose cans into a cardboard box and slid it into the bed. "Probably do a better job than me anyhow."

[*]

Carol watched Daryl silently from a distance while he and Darlene talked, and then she saw Darlene shake her head and walk away from him.

"Make him stay, Mama," Sophia cried from inside the pick-up. A few tears slid down her freckled cheeks.

Carol spoke through the open window. "No one can make Mr. Dixon do anything, sweetie. But I'll try talking to him." She walked up to the pick-up Daryl had claimed and stopped a few steps back, until he sensed her presence and looked over his shoulder at her.

Daryl put up the tailgate and strolled the few steps toward her.

"Please don't go," she said. "You don't have to."

"Got to."

"This was going to be a place for all of us, _including_ you. This was going to be our _home_."

He looked straight down at the ground, as though that last word was a blow.

"He's your brother," she said gently. "But he's not good for you. Please. Don't do this. We need you."

He looked up. "Don't need me. Darlene can hunt a little bit. T-Dog and Rick can shoot. Andrea can fish."

"That's...that's not all we need you for."

"What else then?"

Carol swallowed and looked away. She couldn't put it into words, what she needed him for.

Merle banged his blade on the hood of the truck. It made a hollow, clanking sound. "Wrap it up, brother!"

"Tell Sophia 'bye for me," Daryl muttered.

"Tell her yourself," Carol insisted.

"Cain't." He turned and walked to the driver's side.

Carol watched the pick-up roll down the mountain. A small cloud of dirt drifted lamely in its wake.


	29. Old Yeller

"Daryl asked me to take you under my wing 'fore he left," Darlene told Carol when they stopped at the next cabin. "Teach you a thing or two. So you're gonna clear this next one with us."

T-Dog raised an eyebrow, but he didn't say anything. Lori looked skeptical, and Rick said, "You stick close by her, Carol."

Carol did stick close by Darlene, like glue, following her instructions to the letter. But when they encountered their first walker, Darlene actually backed up and left Carol in its path. Darlene had her rifle poised, and she no doubt would have shot if Carol hadn't managed to stab the creature with her knife. But she did manage. Blood flowed from the head of the fallen walker and oozed a trail on the carpet like a victory ribbon. Carol wiped her knife, proud to see its silver glint dulled. She only wished Daryl could have seen her do it.

"Good job," Darlene told her. "Next time, though, thrust down, not up. Less likely to get bit. Its teeth were damn close to your arm. Hold 'em back by the shoulder too, if you can, when your stab. Keep 'em away from your flesh."

Carol nodded, sheathed her knife, and looked down at her bare upper arm. She had on a short sleeve shirt, as they all did in this Georgia summer heat. It was cooler up here in the mountains than in the city, but it was still almost 90 in the afternoon. "Maybe we should wear more protective clothing," she mused. "Maybe I can design and sew something, a leather sleeve of some kind, with hard metal studs."

"Like armor?" Darlene asked.

"I don't mean for every day. It would be heavy, and hot in the summer. But we could take them on and off. Just wear them when we're clearing some area." She held her arm up and turned it around as the vision fell into place.

"Daryl was right. You got some useful skills."

Carol's arm fell. "He said that to you?"

"Let's go check the kitchen."

[*]

Daryl cranked up his window, because now that they were speeding down the highway, the wind was deafening.

"Sure are quiet over there," Merle said. "Haven't said two words since we left."

"Ain't a girl."

"Ain't a philosopher neither," Merle told him. "So what the hell ya been thinkin'?"

"Been thinkin'...Woodford or Willetts first?" Daryl lied. "Jim Beam or Maker's?"

Merle nodded. "Tough call. Let's just hit 'em in order. Where the hell's my gun, by the way?"

"Backpack in the bed. Get it when we stop."

"Don't know why you had to shoot my best boots. Guess you needed to fool 'em, make 'em feel like you was on their side."

"Mhmh," Daryl murmured.

"Almost fooled me. But ya just wanted to get this show on the road, huh?"

"Mhmh."

Merle shook his head. "Bet you're glad to be free of Scooby and the gang."

"Mhmh."

"Doubt their gonna survive a month in them cabins. Three women who cain't shoot worth shit, a Chinaman, and two useless little kids to protect. Hell, one of 'ems even got a goddamn broken leg!"

Daryl chewed on his thumbnail. "Mhmh."

"But the Dixon brothers shall inherit the earth!" Merle laughed. "Just you wait, little brother. We gonna enter a promised land flowin' with bourbon and pussy!" Merle rummaged through the glove compartment and pulled out a stack of CDs, which he paged through. "These ain't too bad. Whatcha wanna hear? Skynyrd, Drive-By-Truckers, Outlaws, or CCR?"

"Anythin' but Free Bird."

Merle slid in the Skynyrd CD and skipped ahead to "Free Bird." He laughed and cranked up the volume, and soon enough, he was singing along, loudly and sarcastically:

 _If I leave here tomorrow_  
 _Would you still remember me?_  
 _For I must be travelin' on now_  
 _There's too many places I got to see_

 _If I stay here with you, girl_  
 _Things just couldn't be the same_  
 _'Cause I'm as free as a bird now_  
 _And this bird you cannot change_

 _Oh oh oh oh oh oh_  
 _And this bird you cannot change_

"Sing it with me, brother!" Merle shouted.

 _And this bird you cannot change  
Lord knows, I can't chaaaaaaaange..._

[*]

At the fourth cabin they reached, Darlene sent T-Dogs and the others on. "Y'all go on up to the next one. We can't fit anymore supplies in that truck anyhow. Have to come back for whatever we find. Carol and I will just clear the walkers for now."

There were no walkers in the cabin, but Darlene took Carol through the motions anyway, everywhere except the study, which was wide open. Darlene paused outside the entryway. "Daryl asked me to show you this place alone."

Carol wandered through the entryway and looked at all of the framed photos of Sophia on the desk and bookshelf and the half-finished letter still in the typewriter.

"Daryl said this was your father-in-law's cabin."

"Apparently," Carol replied. "I never actually met him." She ran a fingertip over one of the photo frames. "He contacted me two years after Sophia was born. I don't know how he found out he had a granddaughter. He and Ed weren't on speaking terms. I wish Sophia and I could have met him in person. He seemed like such a good man. I don't know how he raised someone like Ed."

"Men don't always turn out like their fathers, you know," Darlene said softly. "Or like their brothers, neither."

Carol hugged herself as Darlene walked out of the study. She stayed there alone for another few minutes, re-reading the letter, looking at the photos, and then wiping away her tears. Eventually, she collected all of the evidence of Sophia and stored it in an empty drawer of one of the filing cabinets before wandering back into the living room and sitting on the couch.

Darlene was collecting matchboxes from the mantle and shoveling them into her backpack. "Looks like the boys missed these."

"A portable DVD player," Carol said, raising the screen of the little player on the coffee table. "If we can find some PG movies in one of the cabins, the kids might like this."

"Might not want to touch that," Darlene warned, but Carol had already pressed play.

Sounds of hard, groaning sex emitted from the speakers.

Carol pressed stop.

"Might want to wash your hands," Darlene said. "And wipe that player down real good 'fore you use it for the kids."

Carol ejected the disk and tossed it on the coffee table. Then she closed the player. She scooted over slightly because something was poking her between the cushions. She lifted the cushion next to her and found several porno DVDs wedged in there, some still in the cases, some out of them. She picked up one case and turned it over. "I never had a really exciting pizza delivery experience myself."

"Me neither," Darlene agreed with a chuckle. "And my mailman was a little on the plump side."

Carol tossed that case on the table and picked up another. " _Barley Eighteen."_ She made a disgusted noise. "That's only six years older than my _daughter_." She grabbed another case. "Oh God. I've never even _heard_ of doing that!"

"Stop lookin' at 'em!" Darlene insisted.

"I'm going to go throw these in the trash and then wash my hands. And maybe my eyes."

While Carol was scrubbing up in the kitchen, Darlene checked the cabinets. "They finished all the food or took it with 'em the first time." She handed Carol a kitchen towel to dry her hands. "Just so you know, I'm sure that was _Merle's_ porn stash. Daryl has simple tastes. And he likes older women."

"Did you two - " Carol stopped. "Never mind. It's not my business. I don't care."

"Yeah, honey, you do." Darlene leaned back against the counter. "So I'm just gonna answer the questions you ain't gonna ask. No, Daryl and me never fucked. He's three years younger than me, and back then I was into older guys. I fucked Merle a few times, after he got out the army, which was a total mistake, but, damn he was good-looking in his twenties, and I was horny as hell when I was eighteen. And now..." Darlene shrugged. "I'm into younger guys. Funny how things change."

"It doesn't matter to me," Carol said.

Darlene chuckled. "Sure it don't."

"I'm never going to see Daryl again." She tossed a towel down on the sink and walked outside the cabin.

Darlene followed.

Carol looked at her motorcycle hesitantly. "Maybe I should walk. I've never actually ridden on one of these before."

"Is that why you didn't want to ride with Daryl?"

Carol nodded.

"Ain't nothing to be afraid of." Darlene mounted the bike. "Don't worry. It'll be fun."

Carol climbed on behind Darlene. She was a little scared at first, but she soon relaxed. The breeze felt freeing as it ruffled through the short strands of her hair and the next cabin came into view.

When they were done clearing all the cabins, the group selected the third from the top, because it was the largest and they wanted to stick together for safety reasons. It had four bedrooms and a study that could be used as a bedroom once they hauled in a mattress from another cabin. The cabin also boasted sturdy external shutters that could be closed at night to provide protection from any strays that might have died and turned outside the cabins. Lori and Rick would share the first bedroom, Carl and Glenn the second, Sophia and Carol the third, and "Andrea can have the study to herself," Darlene said. "T and me can share the last bedroom."

T-Dog grinned and threw her words in the hotel game room right back at her: "Don't make assumptions."

" _Or..._ T can sleep on the _couch_."

T-Dog held up his hands. "I don't mind sharing a room. Really. Not a problem."

Another advantage to the cabin was the small park beside it, which drew the attention of the kids. It contained a charcoal grill, picnic tables, sand box, swing set, and a tall, free-standing, tree-house-like structure with a 360-degree balcony. Sophia certainly wouldn't be scaling up to the tree house anytime soon, but the adults could use the balcony as a watchtower. Rick was already drawing up a watch schedule. No one wanted a repeat of the surprise at the quarry camp.

Carol volunteered to be in charge of preparing meals. The kitchen table seated six, and, in the storage shed, she'd found a card table with four chairs. "So that will fit everyone."

"But _I'm_ not sitting at the kid's table," Glenn insisted. "I just graduated from it last Thanksgiving."

"That's _ten_ chairs, Mama." Sophia looked gloomily at the ground. "But there's only _nine_ of us now."

[*]

The pick-up shuddered over the state line into Kentucky. White and black bird shit dripped down over the motto on the green welcome sign: _United we stand, divided we fall._ The highway was wide open, except for a few abandoned cars pulled to the side and the picked-over carcass of an opossum that Daryl maneuvered around.

"Woo-hooo!" Merle yelled. "Bourbon trail, here we come! Gonna taste 'em all. Maybe find us some fresh tail on the way, too."

Five minutes later, Daryl pulled off onto the shoulder and threw the truck into park.

"We out of gas?" Merle asked.

"Got half a tank."

"What you stoppin' for then?"

Daryl turned off the engine, slid out of the truck, and walked around to the back. The tailgate creaked down.

Merle's door thudded shut. "What the hell ya doin'?

The ties around Merle's motorcycle wooshed as Daryl snapped them loose. The two tires bounced down on the asphalt, and Daryl kicked out the stand before letting go. "Bike's yers. Pick-up's mine."

Merle's brow furrowed. "You want to caravan the rest of the way? That's a dumb ass idea. Waste of gas."

"I'm goin' back," Daryl said. "Back to my people."

"Your _people?_ Those ain't your people!"

"Gonna leave ya a backpack of supplies." He pulled a red gas can out of the truck and left it on the road. "Might want to top off the bike 'fore ya go."

"Wait. What? You think you're goin' back _without_ me? Are you shittin' me?"

"'Member when ya caught me readin' _Old Yeller_?"

Merle looked him up and down. "What the fuck we talkin' 'bout books for?"

"Ya 'member?"

"Yeah, I 'member. You was cryin' like a little baby when I walked in on you!"

"'Cause I's seven. And the boy in that book, he had to take his dog out in the woods. Dog thought it was just another day out with his best friend, but the boy...he knew the whole damn time he had to put that dog down. 'Cause it was the grown-up thing to do. I cain't be a boy no more, Merle. It's time for me to be a man."

"What the hell you talkin' 'bout? Put that bike back in the bed and get the fuck back in this truck!" Spittle flew from Merle's mouth. "And start drivin' to Lexington, like we planned the first time we left them cabins!"

"Like _you_ planned, Merle."

"Is this 'bout Darelne? You two fuckin' now? You want to go back for that piece of tail? Is that all this is? 'Cause we can go back and get her and bring her if'n you want. Promise we won't ditch 'er this time."

"Ain't got shit to do with Darlene. Darlene's with T-Dog."

"She does love her niggers, doesn't she?" Merle rubbed his gray-stubbled chin with his good hand. "I guess after a Dixon dick like mine she can't go back down the scale again."

Daryl grabbed a backpack from the bed and started filling it with water bottles, protein bars, canned food, some first aid supplies, and other items.

Merle crept up to the tailgate and leaned forward, so his face was close to Daryl's. "Is it 'bout that gray-haired chick, then? Carol? Did you start banging that tired pussy?"

Daryl turned and shoved the heavy backpack against Merle's chest, so hard that he stumbled back two steps. Instinctively, Merle wrapped his good arm around the bag.

"Ain't 'bout Carol," Daryl said, though, in a way, it was. Carol had believed in him, even when he wasn't worth believing in.

Daryl knew he wasn't the man Carol thought him to be, but maybe, in time, he could _become_ that man, if he went back to those cabins. Maybe he could _learn_ to be that man, if he had a home up in those mountains, where a warm fire burned on cold, dark nights, where children played and laughed together on the bear skin rug, because no one beat them, and there was always dinner on the table, because no one had passed out before cooking it. Maybe things could be different, a little bit better, if he had a home that more nearly resembled the fantasies of his youth.

"Handgun's in that backpack. Two boxes of ammo. Food, water, antibiotics. Good luck to ya, Merle. Hope ya find some damn good bourbon out there on that trail. And lots of willin' pussy. "

"If ya wanna go back so damn bad," Merle said, "fine! We'll go back! Both of us! Together."

"Cain't both of us go back. Ya know that. That's why I took ya all the way out here."

"What? Wait." Merle dropped the backpack on the road. "You _planned_ this?"

"And don't follow me neither. Don't come back to them cabins. 'Cause if'n ya come back to them cabins, ya know Rick's gonna shoot ya. Ya held a gun on his _wife._ " Daryl walked to the driver's side door of the truck and jerked it open.

"No," Merle said. "Nah. Nah, brother. You cain't be serious! You can _not_ be serious!"

Daryl jerked shut the door and started the engine. He drove forward and made a U-turn in the middle of the highway. The truck rolled up next to Merle and idled. Daryl rolled down his window and looked his big brother straight in the eyes. "Boy couldn't risk it, Merle. See, problem was...Old Yeller got bit by a rabid wolf."

"What the fuck is this with the goddamn kid's book again?"

"Old Yeller was a good dog. Loved that boy 'nuff to get in 'tween him and the wolf, but Old Yeller couldn't save hisself. That wolf's poison done worked itself into the dog. Weren't the dog's fault. Boy knew that. Knew it weren't the dog's fault."

"Daryl, man, are you high?" Merle studied his pupils.

"He knew what that dog done for 'em." Daryl's voice shook. "And he was grateful. But the boy couldn't risk it neither. Couldn't risk Old Yeller growin' rabid hisself, just like the wolf. Growin' rabid and turning on the boy's family. Don't mean the boy didn't love the dog. He loved that ol' dog. So goddamn much."

Daryl pushed down hard on the accelerator, until the truck was shaking, and so was he, and the wind was whipping hard enough to dry his falling tears.


	30. Recruting

Darlene volunteered to sit at the kid's table. "Kids table's a hell of lot more fun anyhow," she said, rubbing Carl's head. Carl jerked his head away, but he grinned, and then he scooted his chair a little closer to Darlene's when she sat down.

"I think our little boy may have his first crush," Lori said to Rick across the main table.

Sophia overheard. She echoed Carl's own earlier words back to him: "You should crush on someone your own age."

Rick smiled. "And someone else sounds jealous."

"Am not!" Sophia insisted to a chorus of chuckles.

When Glenn picked up his fork and dug into the food Carol had prepared, Sophia said, "Wait! We haven't said grace."

"Oh." Glenn put his fork down. "Okay. We uh…we didn't say grace at the quarry."

"We're at tables now." Sophia's tone implied that the difference should be obvious.

"It's a good idea," Lori assured her. "I'm grateful to be at these cabins and to be done with Merle."

Carol looked down at her plate. She was grateful to be done with Merle, too, but not if it meant being done with Daryl.

"Why don't you lead us in grace, then, Sophia?" T-Dog asked with a smile.

Sophia folded her hands together and bowed her head. Carl imitated her. The others lowered their heads slightly. "Good God," Sophia intoned, "Canned meat. Good food. Let's eat!"

Carl leaned back in his chair, threw a hand over his stomach, and laughed. Sophia giggled across the table at him.

[*]

The road behind was empty except for the smattering of abandoned cars, the stray walkers lurching futility after the moving pick-up, and the drifting litter. Darryl wasn't worried Merle was going to try to follow him back. He'd watched Merle in the rear view mirror angrily mounting his motorcycle and roaring north. Merle wasn't a follower, and certainly not a follower of his little brother. He would never submit himself to the indignity. That's why Daryl had needed to use the bourbon trail as an excuse to get him down from that mountain – because the bourbon trail had been _Merle's_ idea.

Maybe Daryl should have told Darlene or Carol that he was planning to return, but then Merle might have caught wind of his intentions. Besides, when he left, he wasn't entirely sure he would be able to go through with his plan, that he wouldn't chicken out in the end. And Daryl didn't make promises he wasn't certain he could keep.

His stomach ached. He knew the feeling well, the sensation that the hollow pit was eating itself. His stomach had done that when Merle was sent off for his nine-month stint in juvie, and then again when Merle had run away from home for good. Daryl's stomach had devoured itself, too, when Rick had said those terrible words at the quarry camp – _There was a problem in Atlanta_ – and when he'd found Merle's severed hand.

But this would be the last time he would feel this particular sensation, this self-consuming pain. Because Merle wasn't coming back to those cabins, and, more to the point, Daryl didn't want him to.

Free as a bird now.

But _could_ he change?

[*]

Sophia, Glenn, Carl, Lori, and Andrea began playing a game of Monopoly on the coffee table in the living room while T-Dog and Rick went outside to batten down the external shutters for the night. Carol was busy making an inventory of their food supplies, most of which had been unloaded into the pantry.

"How long 'fore we got to hunt, you think?" asked Darlene, leaning against the counter top.

"This food could keep us all for seven or eight weeks, if we make it stretch. How good a hunter are you?"

"I hunted some with my daddy and brother when I was a girl, but I ain't that great. I'll maybe manage to get a third of what Daryl could. Maybe. And then…to be honest? I don't really know how to skin properly. I always let my menfolk handle the skinning part."

"I can probably figure that out," Carol said, "My father was a butcher. It might take some trial and error…but, I'll manage." She put her pen down on the notebook she was using to take inventory. "Will you teach me to shoot?"

"I ain't much of a teacher. I was actually thinking of asking Rick to teach us _both_ to shoot."

"Why? You probably shoot just as well as Rick," Carol said. "Maybe better."

"Yeah, but who doesn't want a hot cop to give her a little tutoring?"

Carol looked anxiously through the kitchen and toward the living room, but Lori was too far away to hear. "He's _married_ ," she hissed, "and you're with T-Dog!"

"That don't mean I can't enjoy the scenery!"

Carol smiled. It was true that Rick wasn't bad looking.

"But, seriously," Darlene continued, "I think Rick would teach you better'n me, and I wouldn't mind a few professional pointers myself. I never had any _formal_ training. And if I get him to teach _both_ of us, and I wear my tightest tank top, well….I figure Lori's gonna want to join in the lessons just to keep an eye on me. And God knows she needs to learn."

"No more than I do," admitted Carol, feeling a little embarrassed. "I shot five times and only killed one walker."

"No, I meant she needs to learn she's got a man worth keeping happy."

Carol chuckled.

[*]

 _Welcome to Tennessee,_ the road sign read. _The stage is set for you._ It was set with a herd of walkers, about eight miles ahead on the flat highway, feasting on road kill. They hadn't been there on the way up to Kentucky, but they were certainly there now, so Daryl exited onto a country road and consulted a map while he drove.

Two hours later, when he was almost to the Georgia border on a back road lined by forest on both sides, the pick-up was pushing empty. He slowed to a stop when he spied a small cluster of three abandoned cars, checked that his handgun was loaded, repositioned it in his waistband, and then grabbed his crossbow. Daryl refilled the tank of the pick-up with the two red gas cans in the bed and left them for a moment by the truck.

The sun was setting as he made his slow prowl around the abandoned cars. He needed to make sure the area was safe before he began to siphon off gas from the vehicles to refill the cans he'd just emptied. The cars were empty of walkers, but the doors were all shut, which was odd. Why would someone leave a perfectly functional car, unless they were fleeing in terror, in which case, why would they pause to shut the doors? The back of his neck began to tingle. Daryl put his palm down flat on the hood of one of the sedans. Heat radiated off the metal and into his flesh.

 _Shit._

Daryl swung his crossbow abruptly off his shoulder, whirled around, and leveled it at the seven men who had stretched themselves out across the road.

[*]

Sophia's finger touched down on top of the red, plastic hotel. "That'll be $1,400 please."

"I can give you $5 and Park Place," Andrea told her.

"I'll take it."

Lori chuckled from where she sat on the couch. She was already out of the game. Carol handed her a cup of decaf coffee and sat down beside her. Then she held out another to Andrea who shook her head and said, "No thank you." So Carol sipped it herself.

"Can we have hot chocolate?" Carl asked. He'd seen two big cans of powder loaded into the pantry.

"No," Lori told him. "It's almost bedtime. And it's 80 degrees in here anyway."

" _You're_ drinking coffee."

"Tomorrow," Lori promised him.

"I'll trade you Baltic Avenue AND Mediterranean for Boardwalk," Sophia offered.

"No!" Carl shouted. "What do you think I am? Stupid?"

"But I'm offering you a monopoly," she reasoned.

"For a much better one!"

"Fine. I'll throw in Electric Company."

"No!"

"Water Works?" She held up the card with the faucet on it. "Water is a very valuable resource."

Carol put her cup down on the end table. "You know what, Sophia, I think you're going to have to call this a draw. It's time to brush your teeth and get ready for bed."

"Awwww! Why do I still have a bedtime in the apocalypse?"

"Because we've had a very long day and Mommy is tired."

"We don't _need_ a bedtime," Carl agreed with Sophia. "We don't have to get up for school anymore."

"As a matter of fact, you do," Lori said. "Lessons start tomorrow."

"I wish you'd never found those text books in the study!" Carl whined.

Rick was just then walking into the living room, and he pointed a finger at Lori. "And firearms lessons, too."

Lori sighed.

[*]

The men that now blocked Daryl's pickup were all armed with rifles, except the one in the middle, who held a baseball bat slung behind his neck. His brown beard was too neatly trimmed for a man who had been living in the midst of an apocalypse, and he was wearing a black leather jacket, an insane choice in this heat.

The man grinned, gripped the bat, and then swung it out – more like he was golfing than hitting a home run. He rested it back against his shoulder again, and that was when Daryl noticed it was wrapped with barbwire and stained with blood.

The man held up one hand with his fingers outstretched. "Didn't notice us laying low in the shoulder, so that's minus five points." He bent down all five of his fingers one by one. "But you thought to check the hood, so that earns you two." Two fingers shot up and hopped like bunny ears. "And when you realized you'd driven into a trap, in under one second, you got your weapon in your hand and turned allll the way around…." He twirled the bat in a circle before resting it on his shoulder again. "That's another two points right there." He put up two more fingers. "And - I must admit - that crossbow is one bad ass weapon choice. That's got to be good for at least one more point." All five fingers were up now. "So I say we call it even." He snapped his hand shut. "What's your name, son?"

Not much concerned Daryl Dixon, but when he knew instantly that he wasn't going to be able to predict the behavior of a man, that made every muscle in his body tense. "Daryl."

"Daryl. That actually _fits_." The man laughed. "Well, _Daryl_ , want to lower that crossbow, before my men open fire?"

The man's accent wasn't southern, but it wasn't quite Yankee either. Daryl couldn't place it. "Nah," Daryl replied. "If'n yer gonna kill me, yer gonna kill me whether I lower this bow or not. 'Least I can do is take one of ya out 'fore ya do it."

"I like this man!" The bat swung out and pointed in Daryl's direction. "I want him to join the team!" The man bounced a little on his feet. He turned around to address a gray-haired man who reminded Daryl of Kirs Kirstofferson. "What do you think, Joe? Should we sign him?"

"Whatever you say, Neil."

The man leaned forward and hissed something.

"Whatever you say, _Negan_ ," Joe corrected himself.

Neil – Negan – whoever he was - turned toward Daryl again. "Negan. That's my name. It's _all_ of our names now! It's a good team name, don't you think?"

The name didn't make any fucking sense at all. What the hell was a Negan? "Great team name," Daryl agreed.

Neil-Negan spread his arms out. "I'm building my team. We _are_ Negan! And I'm looking for a good outfielder. How far does that bow reach?"

"Far as it needs to," Daryl said.

Negan chuckled and pointed the bat at Daryl again. "I _do_ like this man." He turned the bat over, put the tip on the ground, and leaned on it. "So what do you say? We're headed to Washington, D.C. - that's where I'm from - but I kind of got stuck on my business trip to Atlanta, seeing as how the world so inconveniently ended. But _now_ I'm going home, and I said to myself - why not build my team along the way?" He swept his hand left and right across his men and then from Daryl to himself. "Join up, rookie."

"No thanks."

"No thanks," Negan repeated. "No. Thanks." He looked from one end of his men to the other. "So _polite_." The bat scraped along the asphalt as Negan walked closer to Daryl. He leaned forward, until the tip of his nose almost touched the tip of Daryl's bow, and whispered, "It's something of an insult to turn down an offer from the best team in the league."

"Don't mean no offense. Just like bein' on my own is all."

"That's a damn shame." Negan tsked and shook his head as he strolled back toward his men. He turned around when he was in the midst of them again. "It's a damn shame, _Daryl_ , because team Negan doesn't like competition. You see, team Negan is going _all the way_ to the World Series, and we're going to have to _exterminate_ any competition along the way. So let me ask you one more time. How would you like to join team Negan?" He cupped a hand over his ear and leaned in Daryl's direction.

"Negan's a dumb ass name," said Joe. "Can't we be the Tomahawks? Or the Warriors? Maybe the Slay – "

Negan whirled and slammed the barbwired-wrapped bat straight into Joe's open mouth. Joe's grip on his rifle slackened, and the weapon clattered to the ground. Negan yanked out the bat, tearing bits of flesh across the barbwire as he did so. Joe stumbled backward two steps and fell to his knees, at which point Negan brought the bat down hard on the top of his head.

Four of the men took a wide-eyed step back while the lunatic continued his beating, and Daryl seized the opportunity to shoot the only man who still held his rifle on him. Daryl's arrow lodged itself between his eyes before he quite got his shot off, and the bullet missed its mark and pinged one of the cars instead. When the body slumped to the ground, creating further confusion, Daryl fled off the road and buried himself in the forest.

"After him!" Negan yelled. "Goddammit! After him!"


	31. Hiding

Daryl's chest tightened. His lungs felt ready to burst at any minute. He had never run so hard. Twigs snapped beneath his feet. Brush crashed – he didn't care about the sound. He cared about putting distance between himself and that lunatic.

The sun had almost completely set when he spied a tree with low branches. He couldn't keep running much longer, but maybe he could hide himself in the coming darkness. Maybe they wouldn't think to look for him _up_ a tree. He scaled several of the sturdy limbs before walking out one and leaping onto a branch of a nearby tree that was not accessible from the ground. He made his way around the trunk, out a sturdy branch, and onto the next tree, which he climbed even further before picking a thick limb to settle down on.

His back against the trunk, his crossbow slung forward on his shoulder, and his hands grasping the branch above to steady and secure himself, he willed his breathing to slow. It seemed unnaturally loud in his own ears. By the time it had finally softened to the faintest pant, he could hear the men crashing like bulls through the trees.

Voices rose and fell. The beam of a flashlight cut through the trees. To Daryl's relief, it went several yards in the wrong direction, to the east, but then it began to circle back.

"Do you know what you're doing?" Negan asked. "Are you really Eastern Cherokee?"

There was no response, at least not any that Daryl could hear. The beam traced a path across the forest floor and then went several yards beyond his tree to the west, but once again, it circled back, and then it hit the trunk of the first tree Daryl had climbed before working his way over to a third.

"Trail stops here," said a man with black hair that fell halfway down his back. Light cascaded all the way up the tree and over its many branches.

"Did he climb it?" Negan leaned against his bat, which he'd rested on the ground like a cane.

"He's not in there anywhere." Long Hair swept the light along the forest floor again and walked forward a ways. Daryl wondered if maybe he kept following the tracks of walkers. He probably wasn't skilled enough to know the difference. The men began crunching through the woods again. Daryl heard Long Hair's voice at a distance now: "Look at that, on the other side of those trees. Beyond the field. See the farmhouse? There's a light on inside. Maybe he went in there."

Their voices died away. Daryl let out a sigh of relief, and his muscles relaxed. He was lucky, unlike the people in that farmhouse, who might be about to meet a bloody fate. _Now_ was his opportunity to escape, to make his way back to the pick-up and drive on to the cabins. Every instinct told him to seize the chance. But then he wondered what the man Carol believed him to be would do. Would _that_ man leave Negan and his "team" to do whatever they were going to do to the people in that farmhouse? What if there were women inside? Children?

Daryl shimmied down the tree and crept to the edge of the woods until he could see the farmhouse across the field. He watched as Negan and two of his men mounted the stairs of the house and the other two crept around the back.

Daryl couldn't quite make out what happened next, but there was gunfire, followed by the screaming of women, and then the door opened and Negan strolled casually inside.

[*]

With the shutters closed, the bedroom was blacker than the night, so Carol left a candle burning. There was no way Sophia would be able to fall asleep without it, but when the girl was snoring, Carol would blow it out. For now, though, the outline of the flame danced against the wall, which was painted like a race track. Their twin beds were separated by a nightstand on which rested an alarm clock shaped like Lightening McQueen.

The cabin had been walker-free. That meant no lingering scent of decaying flesh and no blood to clean up. But it also meant the family that had lived here might have died and turned while out fishing or hiking, and they might still be roaming those woods somewhere. When they were clearing the cabins, they had come across three that were empty of walkers. There might be fifteen undead creatures in the forest, but that was a small number compared to the hoard that had overwhelmed them at the quarry. They had plenty of guns now. They were between solid walls, and Rick was in the treehouse watchtower at this very moment.

Carol felt safer than she had in weeks. If it weren't for the fact that her thoughts kept wandering to Daryl, she might be able to sleep peacefully tonight. But she was worried about him, out there with only his brother, who had a way of finding trouble.

"Mama!" Sophia cried from the twin bed next to hers. "I think Ms. Darlene just hurt herself."

Carol suppressed her laugh. "She's fine, honey."

"But she's really groaning."

"She's _fine_ , honey."

There was laughter on the other side of the wall, Darlene and then T-Dog.

"Oh, I guess so," Sophia said. She pulled the Disney Cars sheet up to her chin. No matter how warm it was, the girl couldn't sleep without something covering her.

Carol rolled on her side and considered the fact that Ed had never made her groan like that. In the early years, it wasn't so bad. There had been some release about half the time, like a pleasant sneeze, almost. In the later years, there had been nothing but the reassurance that at least he rarely lasted long.

Ed was not Carol's first. She'd lost her virginity on her prom night, to the steady boyfriend who left no forwarding address. It had hurt slightly when he pushed through, and she'd seized up. After that, she'd just wanted it to be over, which it very quickly was, but everything leading up to that uncomfortable moment had been thrilling, and afterward they'd cuddled and kissed and traded "I love you's" in the backseat of his car.

She hadn't told Daryl that part of the story, but it was still her fondest memory of sex to this day. As she watched the candle's flame flicker on the wall, driving out a small portion of the darkness, Carol thought, with some sadness, that another, better memory would never take its place.

[*]

Daryl ran hunched over across the field until he was close to the farmhouse, and then he buried himself stomach down in the tall grass. Gripping his crossbow with two hands, he stretched his arms out before himself. His blues eyes peered out over the top of the blades and through the large bay window that opened onto the living room. Oil lamps lit the scene.

A white-haired man stood with his hands up. Negan prowled back and forth across the living room, his bat swinging casually, his four armed men lined up behind him. On either side of the old man were two young women. The blonde, who looked to be a mere teenager, was cowering, but the brown-haired girl, who was probably in her twenties, was standing more steadily.

Negan was doing a hell of a lot of talking. Daryl waited, because he wasn't sure what else he could do without risking those young women. Eventually, the front door opened, and Daryl ducked his head beneath the grass. Footsteps tread down the front porch and out onto the field. He couldn't see well without raising his head and risking discovery, so he listened carefully.

"I can't believe a _farmer_ doesn't have a shotgun at his sides at _all_ times!" Negan exclaimed. "Busting in on you people was like shooting fish in a barrel! That's minus five points right there. But after I shot that boy, you stepped right in front of your daughters, so I have to give you three points for that."

The blonde girl's gasping breaths as she tried to calm herself between sobs were like nails on a chalkboard to Daryl. It required every ounce of self-discipline in his being not to jump up and shoot. He couldn't possibly take all five of them. Not now.

"Sweetheart," Negan falsely soothed, "was that young man your beau?"

A long, howling sob broke out of the girl.

"I'm so sorry," Negan apologized. "You know what you need now? A _new_ lover." Daryl tensed. "A _husband_. Someone who can take good care of you."

"She's only sixteen." The old man's voice made Daryl think of the calm, deep hoot of an owl.

"Oh, Hershel," Negan replied. "Age of consent is an arbitrary construct. Even Mary the mother of _God_ couldn't have been older than fourteen when she was betrothed to Joseph. This idea that a girl needs to be more than sixteen to marry…it's ridiculously modern, wouldn't you say?"

The old man did not respond.

"So is monogamy," Negan continued. "So when we're all done with our business here, I'd be willing to discard that impractical, unnatural, modern construct and generously offer my hand to _both_ of your daughters. But first thing's first. So tell me, Hershel, where are you hiding the man who ran from us?"

"There is no man!" the blonde girl sobbed.

"We aren't hiding anyone," came the other woman's voice.

"Let's just tell him the truth, girls," Hershel said. "I don't want any trouble. You can have the man. I was in the field when he ran out of the forest."

 _What is this old man up to?_ Daryl wondered.

"I told him he could hide in that barn over there, but then I padlocked him in, because I wasn't sure if he was dangerous. Let me just reach in my pocket for the keys."

"No!" Negan commanded. "Boyd, reach in his pocket and get his keys."

The keys rattled.

"It's that third key, with the red tape on it," the old man said.

"You better be telling the truth," Negan warned him. "We better find more than horses and cows in there, or you _will_ regret your little fib."

"You'll find more," Hershel assured him.

Footsteps rustled the grass. Daryl held his breath as a boot and the swinging tip of the bat passed just by his face. Negan and two of his men were heading for the barn. That meant the other two must be keeping their rifles trained on the family. Daryl waited and strained to hear what was going on.


	32. Refugees

A high-pitched scream erupted from near the barn, like the sound of a wounded cat, followed by a barrage of gunfire. Unable to wait any longer, Daryl sprung to his feet. Walkers streamed out of the barn. Two were already devouring Negan, and over a dozen others swarmed around the two firing men. The gunfire was drawing more walkers out of the forest and across the field.

"You tricked us! You bastard!" cried one of the men guarding the family. His finger moved toward the trigger of his rifle. Daryl shot his crossbow at the same time, but the man squeezed off a round just as the arrow lodged in his head. Herhsel's body slumped to the earth, and Negan's man with him.

The other guard, still distracted by the sight of the devouring walkers, was firing his rifle in the general direction of the barn, without actually killing any walkers. Not wanting to waste time reloading, Daryl dropped his crossbow on the grass and yanked his handgun from his waistband, but before he could level it, the guard's head snapped back, his knees buckled beneath him, and his body hit the ground. A light wisp of smoke, like the final curl of a stubbed-out cigarette, wafted from the rifle the brown-haired woman had snagged from the first fallen man. She turned it on Daryl.

"Ain't with 'em." He held his handgun upright and raised his other hand.

"Are you the man they were looking for?" she asked.

"Yes'm." He nodded over her shoulder. "Them things is almost done feastin' on those three, and they's gonna come for us." He looked to his left where walkers were lurching out of the forest and stumbling across the field toward them. "If those 'uns don't get to us first."

"Beth!" the young woman screamed. "C'mon now! Got to get in the truck."

"Daddy!" Beth fell to her knees over the old man's body. "We can't leave him!"

The older woman crouched down and put two fingers against her father's neck to feel for a pulse. "He's dead. C'mon now." She grabbed her younger sister by the arm and yanked her up.

Daryl plucked up his crossbow and ran after the fleeing women toward a pick-up truck. The brown-haired woman jerked open the driver's side door. "Climb in the bed and cover us!"

Daryl did. He used his handgun to shoot the two walkers who were closest to the pickup as Beth got in the passenger's side, because he knew he wouldn't be able to recover his arrows if he used the crossbow. The pick-up peeled off down the gravely dirt road, ramming down and thudding over two more walkers on the way. Dozens were spilling out of the forest and onto the farm now. Some trailed after the pick-up, but others went to feast on the fallen bodies of Hershel and Negan's men. Through the glass that divided the bed from the cab, Daryl could hear Beth screaming and crying.

The pick-up gained speed, rattling and shaking and bouncing in and out of dirt holes until it connected with the paved country road. The woman drove for about five minutes before pulling over and turning off the truck. She slid out of the driver's side and pointed her rifle at Daryl, who placed his handgun in the bed of the pick-up, next to his crossbow, and raised both of his hands.

"Who _are_ you?" she demanded. "And who the hell were those men?"

"Name's Daryl. Don't know 'em. Jumped me on the road. Ran into the woods to get away. Heard they's goin' to the farm. Followed 'em. 'Fraid they might hurt somebody."

"Well they hurt somebody all right!" she shouted. "They killed Jimmy and Otis and Patricia and my daddy!" On the last world, a single sob finally burst out of her, like a crack in a plate of solid armor. Still holding the rifle in one arm, she swiped the other across her eyes, swallowed her sob, and gripped her rifle again with both hands.

By now, the blonde teenager had gotten out of the truck and come to stand next to her big sister. Her face was stained red from tears.

"Get back in the truck, Beth."

"What are we going to do?" the girl wept.

"Get back in the truck."

Beth did not obey. She stood sniffling by her sister's side.

The woman lowered her rifle. "I'm Maggie." She held out her hand.

Daryl stretched his arm out over the rim of the bed and shook. She had a strangely firm grip for a woman. "Daryl. Ya cain't go back to that farm. It's gonna be overrun with them things soon, with all that gunfire. And they gonna stay there a long time, feastin' on them animals." He was surprised more walkers hadn't found the farm earlier, but maybe the family stayed quiet on that land and somehow wrangled them into that barn whenever one stumbled onto the farm. "What were them things doin' in that barn?"

"Some of them were friends and family," Maggie said. "Neighbors. My father must have kept them there. I didn't know. He was hoping for a cure."

"Ain't no cure."

She stumbled back and began to sob. Beth threw her arms around her big sister, and together they wept.

Daryl waited awkwardly for them to be done.

Maggie stepped away from her sister first. "We need to make a plan," she said. "We can't go back there."

"Know a place," Daryl told them. "Just across the border, in Georgia."

"We're _in_ Georgia," Maggie said. "Our farm wasn't in Tennessee."

Daryl hadn't realized he had crossed the border. There was no sign. "Got cabins," he said. "Up high in the mountains, where them things ain't likely to climb. My…" He wasn't sure what to call them. "...My friends is there already. Women and children, too. Nine people in all. Can take ya."

Beth looked wide-eyed at her sister. "We don't know him," she whispered.

"We at least know he was running _from_ the bad guys," Maggie told her, "instead of running _with_ them. And we know he killed the man who killed Daddy. And we know he hasn't tried to kill us yet."

"Got a pick-up with some supplies," Daryl said, "but I ain't sure we should go back for it. Too close to the farm. They's all gonna be clusterin' 'round there now. How much gas you got?"

"Quarter of a tank," Maggie said.

"That's plenty," Daryl said. "Ain't far from here."

Maggie pointed her rifle at him again. "You drive," she said. "So I can hold onto this rifle until I know you're telling us the truth. Get out of the bed, and leave your crossbow and handgun behind."

Daryl climbed over the side of the pick-up, leaving his weapons in the bed.

"Beth, pick up his handgun and hold onto it."

The young woman leaned over the edge of the bed and stretched out her fingers to fish the handgun closer. Once she had it, she put on the safety and then slid it into the waistband of her jeans at the small of her back. These girls were clearly not completely unfamiliar with firearms, despite their father's failure to carry one.

"Now take that knife off his belt."

Daryl flinched as Beth's fingers brushed his side while she fiddled to unclip the knife, still in its sheath. "Just leave that in the bed," her big sister ordered, and Beth tossed it inside with a clang.

[*]

The flame of the candle sputtered out. The numbers on the Lightening McQueen alarm clock glowed an unholy blue in the darkness that followed. They should take out that battery, Carol thought, and save it for some more important use. Time mattered so little now. They marked their days by sunrise and sunset.

Sophia's light snores drifted through the murmured on the other side of the wall, punctured by an intermittent laugh. Carol closed her eyes and rolled away from her daughter.

As she drifted off to sleep, she thought of Daryl's muscular arms surrounding her from behind while he taught her how to hold a gun. She re-imagined his teeth grazing her neck and the warmth that had lingered against her flesh long after he'd pulled away, whispering, "Yer dead."

[*]

Slowly, Beth's head drooped down and landed on Daryl's shoulder. He tensed. Maggie pulled her groggy sister back towards herself.

The pick-up swung onto the dirt road at the bottom of the mountain. The beams of the headlights sent up an eerie glow that chased away only a few feet of darkness at a time. "Almost there," Daryl said. "Top of this mountain. When we stop, y'all stay in the truck. Keep yer weapons down. They ain't expectin' me. Might think we's trouble."

"Why aren't they expecting you?" Maggie asked suspiciously.

"They thought I's leavin' for good."

" _Why?_ "

"Long story."

Maggie tightened her grip on her rifle, and her face paled. Daryl wanted to reassure her that she hadn't made the wrong decision to come with him. "Got two kids in our camp. Carl and Sophia." Not that people with children couldn't be monsters, but it was something. "Both 'bout twelve. Sophia's cute as a button." Had he really just said that? That didn't make him sound like a perv did it? "Carl too. Cute kid." Fuck. Now maybe he sounded like a _gay_ perv. "Carol's real nice. Cooks great too. Lori's…." Daryl tried to think of a compliment. "Carl's mama. Andrea can fish kinda. Used to be a lawyer." After he said it, he wasn't sure if that would make them feel better or worse. People didn't like lawyers, did they? He sure didn't. "Darlene, she's…uh…she can shoot right good." That ought to reassure them, a woman who could shoot men if they got too handsy.

"And the men?" asked Maggie, her voice tight.

"Rick. That's Lori's husband. Used to be a cop." Now _that_ ought to reassure them. It wouldn't have reassured _him_. He'd been raised to believe that cops were corrupt, small-dicked wannabes always looking for someone to body slam or send up for no damn good reason. But it should reassure _them_. "T-Dog. Went 'round gatherin' up folk in the church van when it all started. And Glenn."

"That's all you've got to say about Glenn?" Maggie asked.

"Chinese."

"What?"

"Meant Korean. He's Korean."

"Well I'm sure that will be useful to know," Maggie said dryly.

[*]

Carol sat straight up in bed. Doors were slamming open. Darlene was yelling, "T-baby, get your rifle," and then Rick hollered, "I'm going back out. Truck's almost here."

Anxiously, Carol fumbled in the darkness for the matches and lit the candle. She jerked open the drawer of the nightstand where she'd left her handgun. The Lightening McQueen clock rattled.

"Mama?" Sophia asked.

"Shhh. Go back to sleep, baby." Carol slid in the clip in and made sure she had one in the chamber.

"Mama?" Sophia asked more anxiously.

"Everything's fine, honey," she assured her daughter, and then she went and locked the door and dragged a chair in front of it.

Sophia was sitting up in bed now. "Then why do you have a gun and why are you blocking the door?"

Carol sat down on the foot of her bed. "Just in case, sweetheart."

Even through the closed shutters, she could hear the roar of a vehicle climbing the hill, and then it stilled. Next came Darlene's amused voice, strengthened by the amphitheater of the mountains – "Well if it ain't Daryl Dixon! Short time, no see."

"Mama!" Sophia cried, her eyes shining in the darkness. "Mr. Dixon's home!"


	33. Living Arrangements

The heels of T-Dog's boots were crusted with brownish-red Georgia clay. Daryl noticed because, unsure of his greeting, he was studying them when they walked through the cabin door. Once he was inside, he shuffled to the right to allow Maggie and Beth to enter cautiously behind him, and then he hesitantly raised his eyes.

 _Everyone_ was in the living room. Sophia stood on her crutches next to Carl. Carol looked nervous with her fingertips resting on the butt of the handgun wedged in her waistband. Glenn still gripped his rifle, and Lori stood with her hands in the back pockets of her jeans. Andrea had her hip jutted slightly out, which drew attention to the new brown suede holster on her belt.

Glenn looked at Darlene, who was wiping down her knife. "What happened?" He nodded to Beth and Maggie. "And who are _they_?"

"A walker stumbled out the woods just now," Darlene said. "Had to kill it. Daryl rescued these girls - that's Beth and that's Maggie - from a farm that got overrun."

Guilt twisted Daryl's gut. Beth and Maggie never would have been in danger if he hadn't drawn those men into the woods after him in the first place. "Ain't rescued no one," he muttered.

"Merle?" Lori asked.

Daryl propped his crossbow against the wall. "Parted ways. He ain't comin' back here."

Lori let out a sigh of relief.

"But you're staying?" Carol asked.

Daryl couldn't see her, but her voice sounded hopeful. He turned around and saw that her eyes were too. The tenderness in them made his breath catch a moment. "Yeah."

Sophia hobbled up to him and tucked both crutches under her right arm so that her left was free to wrap around his waist. Daryl's muscles tightened and then slowly unwound as she lay her small head against his chest, hugged him, and said, "I _knew_ you'd come back."

Awkwardly, he reached out one arm and patted her back, twice, with an open palm. He was relieved when Sophia pulled away and hobbled aside. But then Carl lunged forward and embraced him with two arms. Daryl stumbled back a step, and Rick laughed.

When Carl let him go and moved away, Carol took a step forward. "Mind if I do the same?" she asked.

She wanted to hug him? _Why?_ "'S a'ight."

Carol wrapped both arms around his waist, and, this time, instead of doing his awkward back-pat, he wrapped both of his arms around her too. Somehow, she seemed to fit. She felt warm and soft against his chest, but he wasn't used to hugging. He didn't know if he was doing it right. He kept his arms around her and counted to four in his head. Four was a good length of time, wasn't it? Not too long, not too short. Not rude, but not pervy either. At four, he let his arms fall limply to his sides.

Carol took a step back and lifted her light blue eyes to his. "I'm glad you're back."

[*]

The kids were tucked into the twin beds in the Disney Cars room, and Lori didn't protest the mixed gender sleepover this time. Once their door was shut, the full story was told, and the sisters were welcomed into the fold.

New sleeping arrangements were made for the rest of the night. They would settle another cabin tomorrow – the group was now too big for one – but they weren't going to do that in the middle of the night. For now, T-Dog took the bed Carl had vacated in Glenn's room, and Andrea took T-Dog's place in Darlene's room. Beth and Maggie were given the study to themselves, where Andrea had been sleeping on a queen-sized mattress on the floor.

The sisters retreated inside the study with a flashlight and closed - and locked - the door behind themselves. Carol could hear a chair being dragged in front of the door. It seemed they weren't ready to trust all of their new housemates just yet. One by one, everyone disappeared into their rooms except Glenn, Daryl, and herself.

"What about you two?" Glenn asked. "There's just the one couch in the living room."

"Carol can have it. Take the floor," Daryl said.

As Carol was getting the linens from the hall closet around the corner, she overheard Glenn saying to Daryl, "There's _three_ pretty, single ladies here now. Andrea, Maggie, and Beth."

"Four," Daryl corrected him.

"Four?" Glenn asked.

"Carol."

"Oh. Yeah. Carol. Of course."

Carol smiled to herself as she drew out a light blanket from the closet.

"Leave them two girls alone," Daryl warned Glenn. "Just lost their daddy. And Beth ain't but sixteen."

"Geez. I was just making an observation. It's not like I was planning to - " Glenn fell silent when Carol walked back into the living room and dropped a sleeping bag and pillow on the floor and some linens on the couch. "Hey, Carol," he said.

"Hey, Glenn," she called back cheerfully and tried not to laugh.

"Good night." Glenn disappeared into his room.

Daryl shoved the coffee table out of the way and snapped out his sleeping bag.

As Carol made up the couch for herself, she said, "I guess I don't qualify as a pretty lady."

"Glenn's a moron."

[*]

Daryl lay on his back atop the sleeping bag, his hands laced behind his head on the thick pillow, staring up at the stars through the skylight in the ceiling above. They were so vivid. He could make out Orion's belt. He'd learned all the constellations from a book in the school library, where he'd been frequently sent for recess detention in elementary school. The sky was so clear these days, with no more pollution from the major cities. Daryl wondered if this was what the sky had looked like when the first English settlers reached Georgia. They'd been convicts, hadn't they? Shipped away to the Americas to empty the overflowing prisons. He thought he'd learned that in school one time, on one of those rare days when he'd been listening. They'd started a new life in Georgia, those petty criminals and debtors, free from the chains that had bound them to their pasts. Hell, maybe that's what he was doing now.

"Those poor girls," said Carol from the couch. The sound of Maggie and Beth's crying drifted through the study door and into the living room. "Losing their father like that."

"My fault," Daryl muttered.

"What?"

"Could of saved 'em, if I'd of done things different."

"You can't second guess yourself like that, Daryl. You were outnumbered. You did what you had to. _More_ than you had to. And you brought both of those young women to safety. They'll have a home here, as much as it's possible to have a home anymore in this world." When Daryl didn't reply, she asked, "Do you think it _is_ possible?"

"Wouldn't know. Ain't never had a home. Had a cabin when I's a kid. Two, really, cause the first burned down. Three apartments and eight trailers when I's grown up. Ain't never had a _home_."

Carol was so quiet for so long that he assumed she'd gone to sleep. But then her voice filled the silence between the sniffles from the study: "Well, you're home now."

"Yeah," he half whispered in reply. "Reckon maybe I am."

"It couldn't have been easy for you, though, parting ways with your brother. That took a lot of courage."

Daryl's chest tightened. He didn't know if it was because he would never see Merle again, or because she _understood_ how hard that was for him.

"But I'm glad you chose us," she said.

And now it felt like his heart was burning, the way it did when he ate something too spicy. "Nite, Carol."

"Goodnight, Daryl."

Daryl listened to the sniffling die away in the study, and then he counted the stars through the skylight above, but they were too many to number. He fell asleep somewhere around one hundred and seventeen.

[*]

At breakfast the next morning, Beth and Maggie sat at the kids' table with Carl and Sophia, while Daryl sat off by himself on a stool at the kitchen bar. Carol would have to find another chair to put at the main table so he wouldn't exile himself in the future. He was apparently listening to the conversation from his solitary perch, however, because when Rick said, "We need to figure out who's living where now," Daryl muttered, "Oughta stick close."

"The closest cabin is the one up the hill," Rick replied.

"But that cabin only has two bedrooms," said T-Dog, grinning at Darlene. "So we're still going to have to double up."

Darlene suggested the following living arrangements:

 _Lower Cabin-_

Rick and Lori – master bedroom

Carl and Glenn – kids' bedroom

T-Dog and herself – third bedroom

Maggie and Beth – fourth bedroom

Andrea - study

 _Upper Cabin-_

Carol and Sophia – master bedroom

Daryl – guest bedroom

She reasoned that Daryl should be with Sophia, because they all knew he was strong enough to carry her if they ever had to run for a vehicle. She also argued that Daryl and Rick should be in different cabins, because "they're the two most competent men in our group."

"What about _me_?" T-Dog asked.

"You're third most competent, T-Baby."

T-Dog frowned at her, and Darlene blew him a kiss.

"Thanks," Glenn said. "Thanks for ranking me dead last."

"Ain't personal, sugar," Darlene told him. "You ain't too bad a shot, and you got some decent ideas. But Rick's well trained. He's a born leader."

As Lori's eyes went from Rick's face to Darlene's, Carol buried her smile in her coffee cup. It seemed Darlene was already enacting her plan to make Lori appreciate her husband more. Carol felt like she was sharing in an inside joke. Ed had never allowed her to have girlfriends for fear she would "gossip" about him behind his back. _Fuck you,_ _Ed,_ Carol thought. _I can have all the gossip I want now._

"But I want to be in the same cabin as Sophia," Carl complained.

"You'll see Sophia plenty," Rick reassured him.

"But if Carol's cooking for all of us," Glenn asked, "shouldn't she be in the cabin where we're _eating_?"

"I can come down and cook," Carol answered. She liked the idea of being in a cabin with no one else but her daughter and Daryl. She wouldn't have to listen to T-Dog and Darlene having sex, for one. The kids wouldn't wake her at the crack of dawn by playing together loudly. Sophia would have to wait until a more godly hour to go down the hill and yuck it up with Carl.

Carol didn't want to admit to herself the _third_ reason the idea appealed to her - the possibility of spending a little time alone with Daryl in the evenings. She didn't imagine he would _talk_ to her much, but she wouldn't mind his quiet company.

"And maybe _you_ could cook once or twice, Glenn," Andrea suggested.

"I'm really more skilled at _delivering_ the food."

Since Carl's first plea didn't work, he tried a different tactic: "But then Sophia's going to have to walk up and down that hill for dinner!"

"She needs to get used to usin' them crutches anyhow," Darlene replied. "Build strength. Gonna be on 'em a long while. 'Sides, Daryl can give her a piggy back ride if she gets too tired. Or we can get an ATV started. Seen some in the driveways of these cabins."

The whole time the conversation about the living arrangements was going on, Daryl concentrated on eating. Carol thought he had to be scraping the bottom of that bowl of grits by now.

"Is that arrangement fine with you, Daryl?" Rick asked.

"Whatever y'all decide," he muttered to the bottom of his bowl. "Ain't particular."

Glenn craned his neck to see around Andrea to the kids' table. "Are you ladies okay with the fourth bedroom?"

"What does it matter at this point?" Beth muttered. "What does any of it matter?" She'd been gloomy all morning, barely touching her breakfast, despite her big sister's goading to eat.

Maggie shot her sister a look that was part annoyance, part genuine concern. "It's fine," Maggie answered, turning to look at Glenn at the big table. "We're grateful for the food and shelter here. And the safety."

Beth choked. Then she sniffled and steadied herself. Sophia put a hand on her shoulder. "You'll like it here," she assured Beth. "Everyone's nice. I lost my dad, too. Not that long ago. But it's like a family here."

Beth actually looked up from the table. "Your dad died?"

Sophia nodded. "Walkers got him."

Carol's stomach somersaulted. She hadn't been paying attention to Sophia's grieving. So much had happened in the last few weeks that it felt like a _year_ had passed to her, but it might not feel like that to Sophia. Ed had not been a good father, but he had been _her_ father.

So after breakfast, when everyone had dispersed to their own tasks, Carol asked Sophia to stay and help her clean up. Lori volunteered to help, too, but Carol whispered that she needed to talk to Sophia.

"Honey," Carol said as she handed Sophia a bowl to dry, "you know...it's okay if you miss your daddy. And if you ever want to talk -"

"- I'm _glad_ he's dead!" she burst out.

Carol froze with the next dirty bowl in her hand.

Sophia lowered her head. "I'm sorry, mama. I feel bad that I feel that way." She started to cry.

The bowl clunked into the sink and Carol pulled her daughter against her chest. "It's okay," Carol whispered as she stroked Sophia's hair. "Whatever you feel, those are _your_ feelings, honey, and it's okay. You're entitled to them. After what you said to Beth, I was just afraid I hadn't given you the right chance to grieve."

Sophia pulled away and ran the back of one hand across her eyes. Then she rested it on her crutch again. "I was just trying to make her feel better."

"Well that was very nice of you."

Carl thundered into the kitchen, coming to a squeaking stop before the counter. "Want to finish our Monopoly game from last night?"

"Can I, Mom?" Sophia asked, looking at the bowls still stacked in the sink.

"You go on ahead and have fun." As Sophia hobbled away, Carol called after her, "And don't trade him Boardwalk!"


	34. Different Than They Used to Be

That morning, Daryl and Rick went out to inspect all the vehicles parked in the driveways of the cabins. At one cabin, Daryl followed the trail of a pair of ATVs around the back and into the forest. He hiked about a quarter of a mile, with Rick trailing, until he found them both parked with the keys still dangling from the ignitions.

Just beyond the ATVs was a row of wooden shooting benches facing out onto a firing range in a partially cleared section of the forest. The target stands were riddled with bullet holes, staples, and clinging scraps of torn-down targets. Daryl caught sight of two discarded Glock 19s on the ground several feet from the shooting benches. He kicked away some recently fallen leaves, and on the oldest ones that clung to the earth were long-dried bloodstains.

"Looks like two people killed each other here," Rick said.

"Mhmhm." Daryl's eyes darted around the forest. They must be out there somewhere now, turned, and stumbling through theses woods.

"Wonder if it was a suicide pack," Rick mused. "Maybe they got bit and wanted to avoid turning, so they shot each other simultaneously."

"Or they just didn't want to live no more." Daryl stooped down and plucked up both the handguns. He handed them to Rick, who put them in his backpack.

Rick wandered over to the range and Daryl followed. "Five hundred yards," the cop said. "Nice. Now I can teach my lessons in style. Lori wanted to learn."

"Really?"

"And Carol, Darlene, and Andrea. I want to teach Carl, too, but I've got to talk the old lady into it."

"What the hell's Darlene wanna learn for?" Daryl asked. "Shoots just fine."

Rick shrugged. "I wondered the same thing, but she wanted in on the lessons. Maybe I should just make the entire group come."

"I ain't takin' shootin' lessons from no damn cop."

"Well, good, then you can provide security while I'm teaching. Someone has to watch for walkers."

Daryl made a murmuring sound that wasn't quite yes or no and felt a little guilty for his mean words. He didn't understand why he never got a rise out of Rick no matter what he said. Daryl had never known a man like that before, not where he grew up. Maybe it was a cop thing - learning to stay cool in the face of insults - but Daryl had known plenty of cops to snarl at small provocations and lose their shit at big ones. At least, that's how Merle had always described them. He'd mostly steered clear of cops himself, and he tried not to mouth off when he _did_ have to deal with them. He'd never even been put in a choke hold before he met Shane.

"Check this out." Rick walked over to a large storage shed and rattled the padlock. "Might be a lot of range-related equipment in there." When the cop unholstered his pistol to shoot off the lock, Daryl stopped him. "Darlene'll pick it later. Don't waste ammo."

They rode the ATVs back to the front of the cabin and then down to the next one, where a pick-up truck was parked in the gravely driveway. They found the keys hanging on a hook in the kitchen, checked it if it would start, and then continued their explorations. At the next cabin, they found an impressive SUV, but they couldn't find the keys anywhere.

"Guess we should have checked those walker's pockets for keys before we burned those bodies," Rick said. "Think Darlene can wire it?"

"Doubt it," Daryl said. "Too new. These kinds ain't easy."

"Why don't we just siphon off the gas for now?"

By the time they were done with their mission, they'd filled seven, five-gallon cans with gas and collected the keys to six pick-ups, two motorcycles, five ATVs and RTVs, and two SUVs. That was in addition to the two pick-ups and two motorcycles they already owned as a group.

Two by two, they drove all of the working vehicles up the mountain and parked them in a line across the narrow dirt road at the bottom of the big cabin and the top of the small cabin, facing out. There were two reason for this: (1) they could make a quick getaway down either side of the mountain if needed, and (2) it provided a barrier that would slow any vehicles nearing their two cabins from either direction. After all, someone else might find this mountain one day, the way Negan had found the Greene family farm.

When Daryl went inside the big cabin, he found Sophia sitting on the living room floor, her splinted leg outstretched beneath the coffee table. The Monopoly board between her and Carl was covered with hotels. From the looks of their property cards, they each owned half the board. "Gonna be a long game," he told them.

He wandered into the kitchen and snagged a protein bar from the pantry, where Carol stood loading up a cardboard box full of cans and adjusting the written inventory.

"Was that a blueberry?" she asked.

"Chocolate."

She made a notation on her list. "We only have two more chocolate ones. Get a blueberry next time."

"Yes'm."

"And no more than one of those a day."

"Who made you food police?"

"I nominated myself," she said.

He chuckled. "Yeah? Whatchya doin' with the box? Skimmin' the accounts?"

"We're going to take some food up to our pantry in the other cabin. Dinners will still be communal, but breakfast and lunch is on our own now."

 _Our_ pantry. She didn't seem bothered by the fact, but he couldn't believe she'd actually _wanted_ to be alone with him. "Sorry 'bout Darlene. Decidin' all that shit 'bout who lives where. Ya'd probably rather be in the big cabin than in that little 'un with me."

"Sophia will feel safer at night if you're in the same cabin as us. And I'm kind of looking forward to the quiet." She smiled. "I don't see you being a chatter box."

One side of Daryl's lips curved up, and then he felt the sudden need to calculate the size of the tiles on the floor. Three inch by four inch, he figured.

"Should we bring our stuff up to that cabin now?" Carol asked.

"Mhmhm." He followed her to the living room. She'd gotten a pair of thick, brown hiking boots from somewhere. Those made a lot more sense than her old canvas shoes.

"Mr. Dixon and I are moving some things into our new cabin," Carol told Sophia. "Did you pack your backpack like I asked?"

Sophia rolled the dice fiercely and knocked two hotels off the board in the process. "It's on the bed."

Once outside, Daryl and Carol loaded up a camouflaged RTV, which he pulled out of the line, and then drove it the short way to the second cabin.

"Is this for when you're golfing in the forest?" Carol asked from beside him on the two-person benchseat as they pulled into the driveway.

"What?"

"Well, it's a camo golf cart."

"'S a huntin' RTV _!_ Ain't never gonna see me drivin' no _golf cart_."

Carol laughed.

Daryl switched off the engine. His irritation simmered down when he saw how much her eyes were sparkling from the teasing. They looked different when she was happy. Prettier.

"Time to tour our new home," she told him.

[*]

After unloading the food into the narrow pantry in the tiny kitchen of their new cabin, Carol went to drop her and Sophia's belongings in the master bedroom. A fancy, King-size bed greeted her vision. Its sturdy, dark brown wooden poles held up a white canopy, and the bed was neatly made up with a thick comforter and fluffy, frilled pillows. There would be plenty of room to sleep without Sophia poking her in the ribs.

"Oh, fuck that!" Daryl cried from inside the guest bedroom.

It didn't sound like he was in any danger, so she merely strolled to the guest bedroom and peered curiously through the open door frame. Daryl was standing with his backpack at his feet and his eyes fixed on the yellow and black race-car-shaped boy's bed. The number 12 was emblazoned in white on its side. Carol snorted and then covered her mouth with her hand.

"Darlene know 'bout this?" he asked.

"She and T-Dog cleared this cabin alone together." .

"Goddammit!"

Now Carol laughed. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know."

A growl rumbled in his throat.

"At least it's Nascar and not Lightening McQueen. Glenn's sleeping under Disney Cars sheets tonight."

When he turned toward her, his face was all one, long scowl.

"If you want, you can take the couch in the living room," she offered. "It looks like it pulls out into a sofa bed. And Sophia can sleep in here. She's always wanted a race car bed." The number on it even matched her age. Sophia would love it, and Carol wouldn't have to wait for her to stop snoring to fall asleep herself.

Daryl's brow knit in confusion. "But she's a girl."

"She was actually a bit of a tomboy when she was younger, but Ed didn't like her playing with cars and toy tools and such. He told her it was _butch_."

"Dumb ass." Daryl looked back at the bed. "Sophia can have it." He plucked up his backpack. Carol moved out of his way as he walked through the doorway, and then she trailed him into the living room.

He set down his heavy, gray backpack by the arm of the couch and moved the coffee table, which was a wooden hope chest, before tossing off the cushions. The sofa bed creaked as he yanked it partway out and pushed down on the mattress. Then he slammed the bed back inside the couch frame. "Just sleep on the floor," he muttered as he put the cushions back on. "Like it hard."

"So do I," Carol said suggestively, and then couldn't believe she'd said it. For one thing, it wasn't true. She would love a little tenderness for a change. For another, it made Daryl flush as red as a tomato from ear to ear. But the set-up had been to good to resist.

Carol used to joke around a lot, before she was married to Ed. Her father had called her "my little clown" when she was a young girl, and, in high school, she was always making her friends laugh. She thought that part of her personality had died. It was strange to find it resurfacing again, and without warning.

She was sure Daryl was going to shuffle away with his eyes bent on the floor, but instead he actually _looked_ at her. He _almost_ made eye contact. "Yer different," he said. "Than you was."

"You don't like it."

The red was dying down in his cheeks a little, turning more of a light rose color now. "Didn't say that."

"You're different, too," she told him. "Than you were when I first met you."

"How so?"

She wasn't sure how to explain it. He'd begun to change once he was apart from Merle. It had only been a short time since Merle was left behind in Atlanta, but she'd already begun to see the difference. The old Daryl would never have been able to part ways with his big brother. "It's like you were a kid. And now you're a man." Once the words were out, she wished she could take them back. He would probably find them insulting. She might as well have popped a pin straight into the balloon of his ego.

He looked instantly away. A line jumped in his jaw. She was afraid he was either going to storm out or growl at her, but instead he just muttered one word: "Thanks."

[*]

Later that afternoon, Rick held firearms lessons. The entire group accompanied him to the shooting range. When Darlene picked the lock on the shed, Carol was standing on the other side of the doorway. She just wanted to see the range equipment and hadn't been expecting anything to be behind a locked door. Darlene apparently wasn't expecting anything either, because she screamed and jumped back when the walker lurched toward her.

Carol had never heard Darlene scream before. She didn't think the woman ever got scared. Before she even realized what she was doing, Carol had drawn her knife and thrust it into the walker's brain. The squishing sensation gave her a shiver, and she let go when the knife was lodged in to its hilt. The walker tumbled to the ground, and only then did she realize how hard her heart was beating. She could almost hear it.

"Good job," Darlene told her. "Wasn't expectin' that."

"Cain't leave the knife in it like that," Daryl said from behind them. "Cause might be another 'un comin'."

Carol knew he was right, but she wished he would have just said "Good job" like Darlene. "You're right," she said. "I should have pulled it out instead of letting go. I'll remember that next time. I just have to get used to that squishy sensation." She crouched down and slid her knife out of the fallen walker and, for the first time, noticed that its wrists were handcuffed together in the front. A wave of uneasiness washed over her.

Daryl handed her the cloth that was hanging halfway out of his back pocket to clean her knife. As she was rubbing the blood off of the blade, Rick crept inside the shed. He walked around the body, studying it, and then looked at the sleeping bag and empty bottle of water in the corner. "I think she was locked in here _alive,_ before she turned. She died in here." He looked at Daryl. "Maybe those Glocks we found weren't the evidence of a suicide pact. Maybe those men were fighting over who was coming in here first to - "

Carol's stomach churned. Daryl shook his head at Rick, who fell silent. "Gonna get rid of this," Daryl muttered as he dragged the body out of the shed.

"Lots of good supplies in here." Darlene entered the interior of the shed. A stack of paper targets was held down on the floor by a staple gun. "I'd of stapled their goddamn eyes out." Ear protection was piled in one large cardboard box and eye protection in another. There was a reloading presses, several jars of gun powder, and two boxes of spent brass.

Carol, trying not to think about what that woman-turned-walker had been through, asked, "Do you know how to reload ammunition?"

"'Sure," Darlene answered. "My daddy had that very press." She pointed to the blue press at the far left of the reloading bench. "Daryl can do it, too."

"So can I," said Andrea as she drew up in the shed beside Rick.

Rick turned and looked at her with surprise. "Really?"

"My dad taught me. We used to reload in the garage together when I was younger. Daddy-daughter time." Andrea winced.

Carol was suddenly reminded that everyone had lost family when it started. She didn't even know about T-Dog's family. Had he lost parents? A brother? A wife? What about Glenn? Had he once had sisters? In the old world, you were given time and space to grieve a death. In this one, you had to move on within the hour. People rarely talked about their former lives.

"But he didn't teach you to shoot?" Rick asked.

"I _can_ shoot!" Andrea insisted. "I killed three walkers when we fled the quarry. I'm just a little rusty. I haven't been to a _shooting_ range since college. Lawyers _golf_."

"Well let's get this stuff out on the range and get started," Rick said.

As Carol carried her target to the range in one hand and her ear protection in the other, she thought of the poor woman that walker had once been. Anger boiled up inside her. She didn't want to end up a victim like that woman, or like the woman she used to be either. She _needed_ this afternoon, this instruction, these skills, and she was determined to do her best to learn.


	35. Redneck Jokes

After a brief argument with Rick, Lori relented and allowed their son to join the firearms class. Sophia was afraid to shoot, and Carol didn't insist she try yet, but she _did_ demand that the girl pay attention to Rick's gun safety talk and at least learn to check if the gun was loaded.

Sophia was fascinated by the "fancy ears," as she called them, because she could muffle the sound of the gunshots on and off with the twist of a knob. She wore her "fancy ears" as she hobbled a little ways from the range and sat down on a large rock next to Beth, who was also unwilling to shoot. Beth gloomily toyed with some pine needles that had drifted to the surface of the rock, and Sophia tried to engage her in conversation between shooting exercises.

Daryl provided security with his crossbow while Rick gave instruction, in case the gunshots drew walkers. Carol didn't shoot as well as she had hoped. She was better than Lori and Carl, but that was small consolation. Andrea outshot her, and Glenn outshot Andrea. T-Dog did even better than Glenn, and Maggie was a fair match for Darlene. Carol felt tense knowing Daryl was behind her witnessing her inadequacy. She relaxed a little when she considered that his eyes probably weren't on her. He would be watching for walkers.

Darlene had worn her tightest tank top, as she promised, and Lori _did_ notice. Whenever Darlene was asking Rick for pointers, Lori interrupted to ask some questions of her own.

"You're really getting interested in this, honey," Rick told his wife.

"Well," Lori assured him, "you're a very good instructor."

Rick smiled.

When they were taking a break for water later, and Carol found herself on the periphery of the range with just Darlene, she told her, "I think your evil plan is working."

"Just trying to help a sister out," Darlene said. "Would hate to see Rick wander."

"Who could he possibly wander _to_?" Carol asked.

Darlene took a long sip of water from her green canteen and nodded toward the open storage shed. Andrea and Rick were inside picking out more targets.

" _Andrea?_ " Carol asked. "No way. And, besides, he's not the sort of man to wander."

"Rick's a good man." Darlene screwed the cap back onto her canteen. "But _every_ man's the sort if he goes long enough without feeling respected by his woman, and then some other woman comes along and feeds his starvin' ego."

"That's pessimistic," Carol said.

"Ain't pessimism. Just realism."

Carol looked over at where T-Dog stood talking to Daryl. Daryl's eyes moved left and right around the forest like those of a Secret Service agent protecting the President. While T-Dog continued to talk, Daryl casually picked-off a walker that lurched out from between two trees several yards away. T-Dog trailed after him as he went to recover his arrow. Together they dragged the walker off further into the forest.

"Respect, huh?" Carol asked teasingly. "Like telling your man he's the _third_ most competent in a group of four?"

Darlene chuckled. "T-Dog gets plenty of respect in the bedroom, trust me. And if a man's gettin' _that…_ he can forgive just about _anything_ else."

Carol laughed.

"Round two!" Rick hollered as he exited the shed. "Back on the range!"

[*]

Daryl had shot three walkers so far. He wondered how many more still dwelt in these woods. If they were lucky, those from the sleepy town in the valley below would never climb this high. The quarry camp had been lower than the mountain peak and much closer to the city.

It looked like class was packing up. Rick and Andrea and Darlene were putting away the gear in the shed. Carl was trying to catch a toad while Lori followed him, warning him not to touch strange animals. Sophia sat on a rock talking to Beth, and Maggie and Glenn were collecting the spent brass form the range in buckets. Carol sat alone on a fallen tree log to sip some water.

T-Dog told Daryl, "Take a break. Get yourself some water. I'll keep watch."

Daryl didn't get any water, but he did make his way over to Carol. "Been doin' good," he told her. He felt bad for not complimenting her on the earlier walker kill. It hadn't occurred to him that he should have until later. He'd been too worried that if she ever left her knife in a brain again, she might end up dead. "Ya learn fast." She'd gone from barely getting on the paper at the start of the lessons to consistently hitting somewhere within the fourth concentric ring by the end.

"I was way off the bulls eye," she said.

"Good enough to stop a man," he told her. "Just got to be more accurate for walkers. Y'll get there."

She patted the log next to herself. Hesitantly, he sat down and rested his crossbow on the ground between his boots. The fingers of his left hand found a toadstool sprouting from the log.

"Do you think Rick's attracted to Andrea?" she asked.

He followed Carol's eyes as she watched Rick and Andrea looking over the reloading equipment together. Rick turned the crank of the press, said something, and Andrea laughed.

"Man's married," Daryl said. "And he ain't the type."

"That's what _I_ said," Carol replied. "But Darlene said any man's the type if he isn't being respected by his woman."

"Ain't like _Lori's_ been faithful." He bit down on his back teeth. He and Merle had been casing the camp when they saw Lori go off with Shane. He shouldn't have let that bit of information out.

"Don't worry," Carol reassured him. "I already knew about it. I'm not _blind_. I think _everyone_ knew. Except Rick."

Daryl scratched his neck and then let his hand fall back to the log. "Think Rick knows."

"Really?"

"Man ain't stupid."

"But they've never fought about it," Carol said.

"Reckon he decided to pretend he don't know. Shane's dead. They got a kid. Rick's loyal. Ain't gonna happen again."

"Maybe you're right."

Daryl's eyes flashed when he spied Glenn grinning and talking to Maggie. "Dammit," he muttered. "Told Glenn to leave them girls alone!"

"Oh, simmer down. Glenn's harmless. He's a nice guy."

"Now ain't the time for that shit."

"No?" Carol asked. "Did you notice Maggie just laughed at something he said? I'd love it if someone made me laugh when I was feeling down."

Daryl's eyes flitted to hers and then to his crossbow on the ground. He fiddled with the toadstool again, until it snapped off the log. He couldn't do that for her. He wasn't the funny sort. He barely knew how to laugh himself, let alone make someone _else_ laugh. But then he thought of a joke his cousin Billy Ray had told him once. "What's a redneck do when his dishwasher stops working?"

"What?" Carol asked.

"Slap her on the ass and tell her to get back to work."

Carol was deathly silent.

"Sorry," he muttered. "Wasn't thinkin' 'bout…" About the fact that Ed had probably slapped her around for not doing her work to his satisfaction. "I'm a damn idiot." He started to stand up to leave, but she put a hand on his knee, just long enough to still him, and he settled back down on the log.

"Tell me another one," she insisted.

"Nah."

"Please?"

He bit his bottom lip. In his mind, he paged through all the redneck jokes Billy Ray had told him, trying to find one that didn't involve domestic abuse or incest. "How ya know the toothbrush was invented by a redneck?"

"How?"

"Anyone else would of called it a _teeth_ brush." To his relief, Carol chuckled. So he ventured to try another one.:"What ya call a redneck swimmin' in the ocean?"

"What?"

"A saltine cracker."

Carol chuckled again, a little more this time.

Her chuckle made him smile, so he asked, "What's a redneck divorce and a burnin' meth lab got in common?"

"What?" asked Carol, already smiling.

"Someone's losin' a trailer."

This time, she laughed, and his smile grew a little bigger. He _wanted_ to make her laugh again, almost as badly as the way he'd wanted to catch that falling star that had streaked one lonely night across the Georgia sky outside his childhood cabin. "How ya know a redneck got himself a girlfriend?"

Carol's face grew a little more serious. She looked right at him, those light blue eyes as gentle as a doe's. "I don't know. How _do_ you know?"

He couldn't remember the punchline. It slipped from his brain like water through a sieve. Fortunately, he didn't have to remember. Sophia was making her way toward them. The kid was moving fairly quickly despite the crutches and uneven ground.

"Mama," Sophia said when she was stopped in front of them. "I'm worried about Beth."

"Well, she's been through a lot, sweetie," Carol told her. "She's going to be sad for a while."

"I think it's worse than that. She was saying stuff."

"What stuff?" Carol asked.

"I think…I think she wants to die. Like, _really_ wants to die."

Carol swallowed. She glanced at Daryl. He looked immediately away and began chewing on his thumbnail. What the hell did she want from him? He wasn't no damn psychologist. But he didn't want to let her down, either. He pulled the digit from his mouth and said, "Oughtta have Andrea talk to her. She been through that. Didn't do it."

Carol nodded. "We'll make sure she gets some help, sweetie," Carol assured Sophia.

[*]

Beth didn't join them for dinner that evening. She wouldn't come out of the bedroom she now shared with Maggie, so Maggie made her a plate and brought it to her. Ten minutes later, however, Maggie brought it back out, untouched. By then Carl had just finished clearing the dishes at his mother's command.

Maggie set the full plate on the counter. "Anyone want this?"

"Carl," Lori said, "Sophia, why don't you go play a game the living room?" When the kids left, she asked, "Is your sister all right?"

"No. She's not. And I don't know what to say to her. Nothing I say seems to help."

"I tried talking to her before dinner," said Andrea, shooting a glance at Carol, who had asked her to have that conversation. "I know what she's going through, but I don't think I was getting through to her."

"She's…" Maggie glanced over her shoulder back toward the living room where Sophia was sitting on the couch and Carl was easing onto the floor and putting Battleship on the coffee table. She lowered her voice. "Beth's seriously talking about killing herself. She made some superficial scratches on her wrists with a pair of scissors. I think they were practice."

"Oh, fuck that!" Darlene cried.

Everyone except Daryl froze in place in reaction to her sudden outburst, but Daryl just snagged a canned peach off of Beth's untouched plate and slid the slippery thing into his mouth, swallowing it in one gulp.

"I'm going to put a stop to that selfish bullshit _right now_!" Darlene strutted off toward Beth's room.

"What the _hell_ was that?" T-Dog asked.

The door to Beth's room opened and slammed.

"Darlene's mama offed herself when Darlene was a kid." Daryl licked his fingers one by one, sucking the juice off the last one and speaking around his finger: "Really pissed her off."

Darlene's voice rose and fell behind the closed door, but most of the individual words were indecipherable.

Maggie turned and began to walk toward the room, but Glenn bolted out of his chair and put a hand on her arm to still her. "Let her," he said. "Darlene's really abrasive, but…I don't know. She gets things done."

Maggie slumped onto the bar stool by the kitchen counter next to Daryl. "God knows _I'm_ not any help."

Glenn patted her shoulder. "Hey," he said softly. "Everything's going to be okay."

"I appreciate the lie," said Maggie, "but everything is never going to be _okay_ again."

"No, it's not," Lori agreed. "But that's still no reason for anyone to kill themselves."

There was sudden silence from Beth's room. It lasted two more minutes, and then Darlene strutted out.

"What happened?" Maggie asked when Darlene reached the kitchen.

"Left her my handgun so she can just go ahead and shoot herself and get it the hell over with 'stead of dickin' you 'round for the next six weeks playing will I or won't I."

"What?" Maggie yelled.

The kids stopped playing Battleship and looked over at the kitchen as Maggie bolted through the living room and disappeared into Beth's room. Andrea followed her.

"Jesus," T-Dog muttered, and Carol was surprised, because he was not a man to take the Lord's name in vain, "did you really leave her your gun?"

"Don't worry," Darlene said. "She ain't gonna do it. Beth's a bit of a drama queen, if you ask me. But so was _I_ at sixteen. Someone just needs to snap her out of it, let her know the whole damn world ain't 'bout her sufferin'."

"What did you _tell_ her?" T-Dog asked.

"Just that she can't ever bring back her daddy and boyfriend, so now her choice is either to go on livin' and make something of herself that'd make 'em proud, or put a bullet in her brain like a selfish little girl and make her big sister suffer even more than she's already sufferin'."

"Baby, that's cold!" T-Dog said.

"Truth is cold," she answered. She reached over the counter and plucked the Spam off of Beth's plate. "Don't know what you do with this, Carol," she said after her first bite. "But you almost make it taste like real ham."

"Darlene, I know you mean well," T-Dog said, "but you might not have been pursuing the best tactic there."

"Well I didn't see you going in to talk to her," Darlene shot back.

"I don't think the little white blonde girl wants a big, hulking black man to walk into her bedroom uninvited."

"Just sayin', don't judge someone 'til you got skin in the game." Darlene wiped her hands on a loose napkin on the counter. "Gonna go get my rifle and then go outside and lock down those shutters for the evening."

When she was gone, T-Dog sighed. He looked at Daryl, who was sitting on the bar stool eyeing Beth's plate. "What have I gotten into with her?"

Daryl shrugged.

"I don't know what you've gotten into, man," Rick told him, "but I bet she's a firecracker in bed."

"Excuse me?" Lori's eyes seared across the kitchen at him.

"Uh…I was just joking, honey. It was a joke!"

Lori shook her head and began walking from the kitchen, her footsteps falling angrily on the wooden floors. Rick trailed her apologetically to their bedroom, past a worried-looking Carl. Glenn went over to the living room and started asking about the Battleship game, which seemed to provide an adequate distraction.

Carol caught Daryl's eyes over the counter. "I think maybe we ought to go on up to our cabin before it gets too dark. Get Sophia away from…" She waved her hand in the air. "…all this."

"Good idea." Daryl stood, reached onto Beth's plate, and snagged two canned green beans. He popped them into his mouth before heading to the living room. "C'mon, Soph. Got to get."

Carol was surprised but also a little pleased by Daryl's half-affectionate shortening of Sophia's name.

Sophia didn't protest. She seemed to want to escape the drama as much as Carol wanted her to escape it. When she made to get up, Carl helped her onto her crutches. "Mr. Rhee can take over my ships," Sophia told him. "We'll play a new game tomorrow."


	36. A Quiet Evening

Sophia was excited by the race car bed. "Awesome possum!" were the exact words that flew out of her mouth, and they made Daryl chuckle. Now, Sophia and Carol disappeared into the only bathroom with a kettle of hot water to add to the cold water to wash up, and Daryl could hear the murmur of their voices in there. They seemed to be talking about Beth.

Meanwhile, he went to the kitchen sink to spot scrub his filthy flesh, not bothering about the fact that the water was frigid. He scoured his hands and face with a rough bar of Irish Springs soap. The mud and blood of the day trickled down the open drain, and his own clean skin, slightly paler now from his sunless days inside the nursing home and hotel, emerged. He even cleaned behind his ears, which, he realized, he hadn't done in a week. He ducked his head under the cold stream and ran his fingers through his hair before standing up and shaking like a dog. Dirty droplets of water splattered the counter tops. Then he went so far as to brush his teeth, which was not something he typically bothered with more than a few times a week. Daryl was living with two people of the female species now. He figured he should make a daily effort.

The toothpaste made him wretch. It tasted like bubblegum. He'd snagged it from the bathroom before Sophia and Carol went in there, but he must have gotten the kids' toothpaste by mistake. It was in a normal-shaped tube. How the hell was he supposed to know? Spitting with annoyance into the stainless steel tub below, Daryl forced himself through the unwelcome process.

When he was done, he settled at the four-person, circular kitchen table in the breakfast nook to clean his handgun. It didn't need cleaning – he'd only squeezed off two rounds at the Greene farm – but it was something to do.

Eventually, Sophia and Carol came into the living room in their pajamas. Both had on black sports shorts and a short-sleeve t-shirt. Carol's shirt was white, and Daryl tried not to think about the fact that she probably didn't have a bra on underneath it anymore. So instead, he thought about how he would have to find them both some thick, flannel PJs once winter rolled around. Maybe some footy pajamas for Sophia. He'd loved footy pajamas when he was a boy. His nana had given him a pair, all camouflaged. If he'd wanted to, he could have run out of the cabin and slept in the woods and no one would have found him. Not that anyone would have come to look.

In this little cabin, the living room was only a few feet from the breakfast nook, so he could see and hear everything that was going on. And what he saw was Sophia settling on the couch and Carol putting down a DVD player on the coffee table before her. "Just fifteen minutes of the disc in here," Carol told her, "and then it's bedtime."

That DVD player looked awfully familiar. It was a weird shade of blue, which was something he'd noticed about the DVD player Merle had picked up at Walmart.

Daryl dropped the loose barrel of the gun he was cleaning. It clanked onto the wooden table, and his chair scraped back against the wood floor as he lunged into the living room and snatched the DVD player from the coffee table before Carol could press play. "Don't just play whatever's in there!" He slammed the screen shut.

Carol laughed, and he could feel his cheeks growing red. "You don't think I checked it when I found it?" she asked, "You think I'm just pressing play without knowing what's in there?"

Shit. She'd _seen_ what was in there. She probably thought all that porn was his. Some of it was damn hard core, too. Why had he told Darlene to show her that cabin? And what movie had Merle been watching last?

"I put the Looney Tunes in there," Carol told him. "I found a collection in the kids' bedroom in the big cabin." Carol held our her hand. "Now may I have the player back?"

Daryl handed it over to her. "Sorry," he muttered, and then he ducked his head and went back to the table.

He concentrated fiercely on reassembling his gun as the Looney Tunes theme song drifted from the living room, and when Carol came and sat down at the table across from him, he stood without looking at her, shoved the handgun in the waistband of his pants, and plucked up the crossbow he'd leaned against the nearby counter. "Goin' to batten down the shutters."

Daryl spent a long time outside. He not only secured the shutters but also did a full walk around the perimeter of the cabin. Then he wandered down the hill to the park between the two cabins, climbed up the ladder of the treehouse play structure, and walked around the outer balcony to where Rick stood on watch with an AR-10 in his hands and a pair of binoculars slung around his neck. An oil lamp sat on the wooden deck, burning low.

"Take yer shift," Daryl said.

Rick shook his head. "You're on at five in the morning."

"Do both."

"I planned the shifts so people would be well rested and alert."

"That's five hours 'tween. Be fine."

Rick sighed. "Look, Lori's pissed off at me right now, and I'd really like to go back to the cabin _after_ she's asleep."

"'Cause of that thing ya said 'bout Darlene probably bein' a firecracker in bed?"

"Yep." Rick looked solemn for a moment but then he grinned. " _Is_ Darlene a firecracker in bed?"

"How the hell would I know?"

"I just assumed you two - "

"- No. 'Sides, ya need to tend to your own wife and not worry 'bout what other people was doin' 'fore the world ended."

" _Tend_ to my own wife?" Rick asked. "What the hell does that mean?"

"Nothin'. Don't mean a goddamn thing. Forget it."

Rick gave him a cutting look. "Means something."

"Just…if I had a pretty wife, and she was the mother of my kid? Wouldn't be talkin' 'bout other women 'round her like a dumbass."

"Is that so?" Rick asked. "You'd be the ideal husband, would you?" He laughed.

Daryl scowled because Rick was right. He'd be a shit husband. He wasn't even a very good _housemate._ He'd left Carol wondering where he was, which was suddenly obvious to him because his sensitive ears picked up the sound of the front cabin door opening and closing way up the hill. "Give me them 'noculars."

Rick slid them off of his neck and handed them over. Carol had come outside the cabin, still in her sleep clothes, but with hiking boots now and her handgun drawn and held down at her side. She had good trigger discipline, he noticed. She walked down the stairs and through the grass-pocked, gravely dirt to peer around the corner of the cabin, probably wondering why he hadn't come back inside yet.

Daryl shoved the binoculars against Rick's chest, shimmied down the ladder, and jogged into view. When Carol spied him from the distance and waved, he slowed to a walk.

[*]

Carol hadn't realized quite how tense she was until she spied Daryl near the park and every muscle in her body unwound at once. He hadn't been bit out here. He'd just been avoiding her in his embarrassment over the DVD player. He would likely take his sweet time walking up that hill now. She shook her head at him and went back inside the cabin.

"Did you find him?" Sophia asked nervously when Carol came through her bedroom door. The girl was lying on her back in the race-car bed and had her black-and-yellow Nascar sheet pulled up to her chin, but the comforter was in a pile on the floor. It was much too warm for that.

Carol pulled the desk chair up beside her bed and sat down. "He was just talking to Mr. Grimes. He'll be home soon, honey. Let's say our prayers."

Sophia tented her hands together atop her stomach. "Lord God, thank you Mr. Dixon is okay. And please help Beth to be okay. And help Ms. Maggie to fall in love with Mr. Rhee because I think he really likes her." Carol suppressed her chuckle. "And make Mama happy too. And let me win at Battleship tomorrow. And thank you for this cabin and that we have running water and food. Amen."

"Amen." Carol leaned over and kissed her forehead. "You're a very sweet and thoughtful girl, Sophia."

"Can you read to me for awhile?"

"Of course." Carol looked through the books on the small, two-shelf bookcase next to the desk. She wanted something light and uplifting for Sophia tonight. She settled on a collection of poems by Shel Silverstein, and once back in the chair, she opened the book to a random page and began to read, "Sara Cynthia Sylvia Stout would not take the garbage out!"

Sophia knew this one, and she was already chuckling.

[*]

When he got inside, Daryl could hear Carol reading to Sophia through the open doorway leading to the girl's bedroom. After propping his crossbow against the side of the armchair, he sat down. The barrel of his handgun poked uncomfortably against him, and he pulled it out of his pants and laid it on the end table. He had to stop walking around like a gang banger and find himself a holster like Andrea had. Carol needed one,too. He would search the cabins tomorrow for a pair.

His boots clomped onto the area rug as he kicked them off by the heels. The moldy stench of sweat wafted to his crinkling nostrils when he peeled his socks off one by one and tucked them inside the boots. Only when he swung his bare feet up on the coffee table did he realize how filthy they were. Daryl sighed and made his way to the kitchen sink, grabbed the same kitchen towel he'd used to dry off his face earlier, and wet and sudded it to scrub his feet. They were still a bit discolored - but considerably less stinky - when he put them up on the coffee table again a few minutes later.

He closed his eyes and listened to Carol's soothing voice as she read:

 _Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black  
And the dark street winds and bends.  
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow..._

Daryl thought of them all leaving Atlanta, fleeing that concrete prison for the open air and piney scent of this private paradise. To think these cabins had also once felt like a prison to him when he was here with Merle, and now...now he thought it could be something else. A home.

 _We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,  
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go  
To the place where the sidewalk ends…  
_  
When he heard her coming out of the room, Daryl grabbed his crossbow from the floor and pretended to be doing something important with the strings.

Carol eased down on the couch not far from his arm chair. "You were out there so long, I was afraid you got bit."

"Just talkin' to Rick."

"Did he say anything about Beth?"

Daryl shook his head.

"I'm worried about her."

"Mhmm."

"Don't you think Darlene was a bit much tonight?"

"Darlene's always a bit much. "

Carol chuckled. "I don't know. Maybe this world calls for more brutal honesty. We don't have time for subtly anymore."

"Got all the time in the world now," he said. "Up in these here mountains." There was so much peace here, after the horror of the quarry camp, the slaughter at the nursing home, the killings on the Greene farm.

Carol crossed her legs at the knee and leaned back against the cushions. "Maybe."

He was relieved that she wasn't mentioning the porn she'd found. Maybe she knew it was Merle's. She hadn't been treating him like she was disgusted by him, after all. "Think it's nice that ya still read to Sophia," he said. "Even though she's plenty old enough."

"Well, she has dyslexia. Sophia's always hated reading. But she likes to be read _to_. I tutored her a lot, with all these books and special programs…and she's gotten better, but it's always been a struggle. Kids used to make fun of her in school."

It was a strange feeling, this sudden urge to pummel children who probably didn't even exist anymore.

"It makes her feel stupid," Carol continued.

Daryl knew something about that. "She ain't stupid."

"No, she's not. Sophia's a really smart girl in other ways. She's great with puzzles and strategy games."

"So…she cain't read?"

"She _can_ read. And she does read for information, but I think it feels like a chore to her. I wanted her to learn to love _stories_ and poems, even if she never willingly picks up a book on her own. So I read aloud to her as often as I can."

Daryl wanted to say that she made listening to stories and poems easy, that she had a beautiful voice, but he had a harder time saying things than he did thinking them. The words always floated around in his head like the ghost of a body, all essence, no form. So he just said, "Mhmhm." And then he fiddled with his bow.

"Quiet in here," Carol said after a minute or two of silence.

"'S nice. Think I got the best end of the cabin deal."

"Don't be so sure of that," she teased, "I might talk at you all evening."

"Long as ya don't 'spect me to answer."

She smiled, but she didn't talk at him. Instead she got up and went to the kitchen – which was a stone's throw from the living room – and put the kettle on the wood stove. She made two cups a tea and brought them over, setting his on the end of the chest-shaped coffee table, with the string still hanging over the side.

"Ain't a tea drinker," he said.

"You drink sweet tea, don't you?"

"Sure."

"I put lots of sugar in it."

"Yeah, but it ain't cold."

"A simple thank you would suffice."

"Thanks," he muttered contritely. But he didn't touch it for a while. He kept messing with his bow. Eventually she took his tea bag out and lay it on a napkin next to hers. He didn't want to offend her, so he reached for the cup, ready to choke it down, but it actually tasted good. "Ain't bad."

"It's jasmine," she said.

"Like the flower?"

"I think that's what it's made from."

"Ya know that story?" he asked.

"What story?"

"This duke in Europe, he got this one jasmine flower from China. Just one." Daryl slurped the tea. "Rich asshole wanted to keep it all to hisself. But he had this poor gardener wanted to give his sweetheart somethin'. Gardner picked a sprig for 'er to wear. She planted it…thing took root…grew big…and they made more cuttin's from it. Gardener sold 'em and got stinkin' rich, so then they could afford to marry and buy their own land. True story."

"Did your nana tell you that story, too?" she asked. "Like the Cherokee rose?"

"Mhmhm." Daryl nodded. "Told me lots of stories 'bout where all the stuff in nature came from. How it got where it got."

"Were you close?" Carol asked.

He shrugged. "She died when I's seven."

"But you still remember all her stories."

Daryl ran his fingertip around the rim of the coffee cup, dipped it in to the burning tea, and then licked it off. "She told 'em good." And she had never raised a hand to him, not once. She hadn't even raised her voice often.

"Your mom's mom?"

Daryl nodded.

"Three of my grandparents died before I was born," Carol said. "And my grandfather thought children should be seen and not heard. He certainly never told me any stories." She took a sip of her tea. "Do you think I should tell Sophia about her grandfather? Show her the cabin? Let her read the letter?"

Daryl shrugged.

"I don't want to make her sad about it, you know."

"Ya don't think she already figures he's dead?" he asked.

"I suppose she must." Carol's cup shook a little when she sipped.

"Might could be nice for her to know he was thinkin' of her 'fore he died."

Carol nodded.

"Just don't...don't tell her I's the one - "

"- I won't," she promised him. She seemed thoughtful for a moment, and then she said, "I may not have had good grandparents, but I was luckier than either you are Sophia. My parents…they were decent parents."

"What the hell ya talkin' 'bout? Sophia's got a decent mama."

Carol smiled faintly. "Thank you."

"Yer daddy was a good man?"

"Yeah. If he had lived, I don't know...Maybe I would have gone to college. Maybe I wouldn't have ended up with Ed. I don't know. None of it matters now, does it? Nothing we did in the old world matters anymore."

"Ain't a bad thing, maybe," he said. "We get to start over."

She smiled, a little sadly, a little sweetly. That smile made his chest tighten. "We do, don't we?" she asked. She stood and reached for his cup. He drained the last two sips and handed it to her.

Daryl watched her as she walked to the kitchen, thinking that he could get used to evenings like this. His eyes fell to the bow in his lap when she began walking toward him again. Carol paused with her fingertips on the arm of his chair. "I'm so tired," she said. "Guess I'm not used to all that shooting. Goodnight, Daryl."

"'Nite." He sensed, rather than saw, her leave. He resisted the urge to turn and watch her walking away.


	37. Frog Gigging

Carol looked up from the French press when she heard Daryl come through the door after his early morning shift on the treehouse watchtower. She'd already rolled up his sleeping bag and put it against the wall by the fireplace and returned the coffee table to the center of the area rug. "Sorry," she said when she saw him looking at the rolled up bag. "Did you want to go back to sleep? I should have left it."

"Nah. Couldn't anyhow." He leaned his bow against the wall and then stretched one arm behind his shoulder. Carol watched his muscles flex and ripple. When he turned toward her, she looked hastily away at the stopwatch she'd set for the coffee. It beeped, and she turned it off and pressed the top of the French press down slowly.

Daryl wandered over to the other side of the island counter. "Smells damn good."

"It makes six cups. Well, three mugs more like." The rich brown stream flowed into one green ceramic cup and then another. "It makes it really strong."

"Ya like it strong?"

Carol bit her bottom lip to repress her smile and tried to keep kept her eyes off his bare arms. She would miss those cut-off shirts when winter rolled around. "Yeah, I do."

He must not have caught her teasing tone this time, because he didn't flush or tell her to stop. He just took hold of one of the mugs and sipped. "Damn good. Ya should of been a chef."

"A barista, you mean?"

"A whoza?"

Carol leaned back against the other counter, near the sink. "They're the people who make the fancy coffee at Starbucks."

"Ain't never been to a Starbucks. What the hell I want to pay $6 for a cup of joe?"

She laughed, sipped, and then said, "I've only been a couple times. I was in a women's Bible study group that met at one. For awhile." Until Ed had told her ten miles was too far to drive for a Bible study and what the hell did she need those gossipy women for anyway? Over Daryl's shoulder, Sophia was yawning as she swung her way into the living room on her crutches.

Daryl turned. "Hey, sleepy head."

"Good morning, Mr. Dixon." Sophia looked at Carol. "What's for breakfast?"

They ate oatmeal with hard raisins around the kitchen table, and then Sophia hobbled off to get dressed.

While she finished off her coffee, Carol asked Daryl, "What's on your agenda for today?"

"My what?"

"What are you planning to do?"

"Gonna look in the cabins. Find us some holsters. Then thought maybe I'd take Carl frog giggin' if Rick'll let me. Found me a good five-tine gig in that shed out there."

"Frog…what?"

"Giggin."

"Okay." She chuckled as she took a sip of her coffee. "Is that like...hunting for frogs?"

"Ain't _like_ huntin' for frogs. _Is_ huntin' for frogs."

She smiled.

"You ain't never heard that word?"

Carol shook her head. "Ed went duck hunting a few times a year with his buddies. Deer hunting once a year. That was mostly it. No frog _giggin'_."

"Ed weren't a proper redneck," Daryl told her.

"No, I guess not," Carol said. If you didn't count the stereotypical wife beating. Carol's mind strayed from that unpleasant thought to the fact that Ed, unlike Daryl, had never been fond of wearing wife beater T-shirts. Ed wouldn't have looked nearly as good in on, but Daryl's strong, tanned shoulders and muscular arms were hard to ignore in that thing, as was the sculpted outline of his chest where the thin fabric clung close.

Carol didn't used to notice things like that - the way men looked. While married to Ed, she'd learned to avoid looking at men, but these last few days, she'd let her eyes subtly caress Daryl from time to time. The only thing she couldn't look at were his eyes, because, whenever she did, he lowered them or flitted them away like a schoolboy caught in some dirty thought. Carol wanted to know how blue those eyes were, and if there were any other flecks of color dancing in their shadows, but she'd probably never have a chance to study them.

Daryl wrapped a hand around the green ceramic handle of the coffee cup. Carol's eyes were on his fingers - strangely clean except the contrasting dirt beneath his nails - when he startled her with an unexpected attempt at conversation. His gravely voice broke through her thoughts: "So uh…what's on yer _agenda_?"

Carol looked up at him. His eyes fell to the rippling liquid in his cup.

"I'm going to take that huge leather jacket I found in the hall closet," she answered. It looked like it had belonged to a very tall, very plump man, and she doubted anyone in their group would want - or be able - to wear it. "Cut it up, and try to sew some protective, studded leather sleeves that we can pull on and off if we ever have to clear more walkers from some place. So if our arms get bitten while we're stabbing, it won't pierce through the skin."

"Good idea." He looked up again, without quite looking straight at her. "'Cause we oughta go on a supply run eventually, 'fore winter, down in the village. We ain't likely leavin' this mountain once them roads ice."

It was strange, to be planning for a time four months down the road, as if there might be a real future to build for, instead of just a daily existence to eke out. Strange...and hopeful.

[*]

When Carol got down to the main cabin later that morning, Beth was playing Battleship with Carl. Sophia seemed at once happy that Beth had begun to emerge from her funk and jealous that she was taking her spot as Carl's playmate. While Sophia sullenly began a game of Solitaire, Carol searched the cabin for sewing supplies. She thought she'd seen some when they first cleared this cabin a basket on the hutch in the kitchen. Sure enough, there they were - needles, scissors, thread, threaders, and all.

Darlene was standing by the counter and eating a dry bowl of Lucky Charms with a spoon when Carol started rummaging through the supplies. "Makin' somethin'?"she asked.

"Those sleeves, but later. I was hoping Rick would take us shooting again this morning. Do you think he will?"

"Sure he will. I ain't goin' this time though. Think my plan backfired. Instead of appreciatin' Rick more, now Lori's just more pissed off at him. And at me."

The cabin door opened and Carol recognized the sound of Daryl's boots clobbering over the wooden floor of the foyer - he had a particular, heavy step that wasn't quite like anyone else's. She made her way into the living room and found him setting down a tin bucket. Then he leaned a large, sharp pronged tool against the wall. She supposed he planned to use all that for frog giggin' later. Daryl pulled a black leather holster out of the bucket and handed it to her. "Should fit yer gun."

It did, if she used the second set of snaps to secure the weapon in place. Carol was glad not to have her gun situated in her pants anymore. Daryl had found one for himself, too, she saw, with the initials D.B. carved into the brown leather. "If only that second letter had been a D," Carol said, "it would have your own initials."

"Middle name starts with a B," Daryl replied. "So it does anyhow."

"What _is_ your middle name?"

"Ain't tellin'. Always hated it."

"Bob?" Sophia guessed as she laid out the last row of her pyramid of cards and began her Solitaire game.

"Ain't nothin' wrong with Bob," Daryl told her.

"Billy?" Carl ventured.

"Nah. Billy Ray was my cousin, though. Solid name."

"Boone?" Beth guessed. "I had a crush on a boy named Boone last year in high school."

"Was he cute?" Sophia asked.

"Of course he was."

"Ain't Boone," Daryl told them.

"Bubba?" Sophia asked. "Because I'd totally be embarrassed by that name."

"No. But like I said," Daryl insisted. "Ain't tellin'." He walked over to the door and picked up the tin bucket. "Hey, Carl, little man, wanna go frog giggin' with me?"

"Heck yeah!" Carl yelled as he stood up and slammed down the lid of his battleship game. "What's frog giggin'?"

[*]

The beating of her own heart echoed in Carol's ears as a walker lurched out from between two trees ten yards away. Rick was leading Lori and Andrea through some shooting exercises on the range. Carol had already had her turn at the targets, and it was now her duty to stand watch. Her pistol shook slightly in her grip, and she forcibly steadied it. Using the white and blue dots to line up her sight picture, she squeezed the trigger seamlessly. A piece of bark shot off a tree just above the walker's head. She'd jerked the gun up slightly in unconscious expectation of the recoil. But with her second shot, Carol didn't flinch: her bullet pierced the monster's brain, and the creature slumped to the forest floor.

"Well done!" Rick called from the range, and Carol felt a new sense of pride and confidence swelling her head as she waited for her heart to still.

Rick resumed his lessons.

Lori still seemed peeved at at her husband, but when Andrea told Rick he was the best teacher she'd ever had, Lori grew strangely quiet.

When the lesson was over, Andrea stood watch and Carol collected spent shell casing from the range. She was about to take half a bucket full inside the shed when she overheard Lori and Rick arguing inside. Lori's voice was bitter: "I hope you're not wondering if _Andrea_ is a firecracker in bed, too."

There was a click, possibly from the ex-cop slapping the cylinder of his revolver back into place, and then Rick's low, annoyed response: "Doubt she's as good at starting fires as _Shane_ was." He paced out of the shed, his eyes on his black uniform boots. Carol pretended to have just been arriving and took a pronounced step back as he marched out.

When Carol walked in the shed, Lori was crying. The bucket of casings clanged as Carol set it down abruptly. "Oh, sweetie." She did what she could to comfort Lori.

Eventually, the woman wiped her tears dry with her fingertips. "You know what the worse part of it is?"

"What?" Carol asked.

"I think I'm pregnant."

[*]

"This isn't how Shane taught me to do it." Carl shifted his grip on the tin bucket.

"Yeah? How many frogs y'all catch?"

Carl shrugged. "None." The murky water was up to his kneecaps. They'd both waded in barefoot, though Daryl hadn't needed to roll his pants up very far. The water at the inlet here was less clear than in the main stream and had pooled to form a small pond. Dragonflies hovered over its surface.

"Shh, now! Y'll scare 'em away." Daryl waded a little farther in, caught sight of a movement, and stabbed. The gig came up with a frog speared on one of the tines. "Take 'em off and put 'em in the bucket."

"Ewww!" Carl protested, even as he obeyed, peeling the frog off and tossing it in the bucket. He did it again when Daryl stuck another two frogs. "Can I use the gig now?" he pleaded.

Daryl took the bucket from Carl's hand and extended him the gig. "Ya can try." Carl struggled to get his grip on the tool, which was too big for him. Daryl waved a hand over the water. "Watch for the ripples. Look for the eyes first."

Carl couldn't manage to get a frog, and he grumbled at every failed attempt.

"Easier at night," Daryl said. "More vocal. More of 'em 'round. But I doubt yer mama'd let me take ya out at night."

"Probably not," Carl agreed and reluctantly handed Daryl the gig back.

"Need ya to hold the bucket."

Carl took the handle with a frown. "This is the dumb part of the job."

"Ain't no such thing. Every part of a job's got to be done, or the job don't get done, do it?"

Carl shrugged.

The water splashed up and splattered into Carl's freckled face as Daryl drove the gig down. The boy ran an arm across his face to clear it, and then he peeled the frog off the tine. "I miss Shane."

Daryl didn't know what the hell to say to that, so he just handed Carl the gig and took the bucket. "Stab away, kid."

Carl did, angrily and eagerly, until he finally stabbed something. Unfortunately, that something was nothing but an aluminum can. Pond water poured out of the hole he'd just made and out of the popped tab. Carl slid the now mostly empty red can off the tine and looked in awe at the word _NEW!_ on a banner across the top of the word Coke. His little mouth dropped open. "Is this one of the first Coke cans _ever_?"

Daryl chuckled. "Ya think a can done survived over a hundred years down there?"

"Coke's _that_ old?" Carl asked.

"Hell yeah. Invented by a Confederate Colonel in Atlanta. Ain't yer daddy never taught you that?"

"No."

Daryl shook his head. "Well do ya even know when the War 'Tween the States was?"

"The what?" Carl blinked in confusion. "Oh. You mean the Civil War? Yeah. 1860s."

"This 'un..." He took the can from Carl's hand. "Been down there a long time, but not _that_ long. This here's a New Coke. Came out when I's a boy. Pissed my Uncle Clevus off somethin' awful. Thought changin' that formula was just another surrender to the Yankees. Shit taste like fuckin' Pepsi."

"I hate Pepsi."

"Uncle Clevus used to throw 'em in the air, all fulled up, and make me and my cousin Billy Ray explode 'em with our .22s for target practice. Used to rain New Coke in them backwoods." Daryl handed the bucket he was holding to Carl. "Here, hold my bucket 'n watch this."

Carl took the bucket out of his hand. Daryl slid his crossbow off his back and held it with one hand. He refilled the New Coke can with pond water - as best he could with water leaking out the top and the hole Carl had already made - and tossed it high into the air. Almost simultaneously, he seized his bow with both hands and aimed. The aluminum glinted in the sunlight. When the arrow pierced through it, the scummy water exploded out and rained down on Carl's laughing head.

[*]

Carol's hand froze on Lori's back, which she'd been rubbing. "How do you..."

"I'm nine days late now."

"Nine days isn't that long," Carol reasoned. "Sometimes I'd be - "

"- I'm _never_ late."

Based on when Rick had joined the quarry camp, Carol didn't see how the baby could possibly be his. "Oh," she said.

"Don't tell Rick."

"You _have_ to tell him, Lori."

Lori let out a shaky sigh. "Maybe I'll miscarry, if I'm lucky."

Carol tried not to react. She kept her face still, but she couldn't help but think of her own miscarriages, two of them before Sophia. She hadn't told Ed she was pregnant either time. She'd been too scared. He'd never wanted children, though he'd refused to use condoms and wouldn't pay for the pill. She was suppose to keep track of her cycle, but sometimes he wanted sex on fertile days. On those days, she was supposed to tell him to pull out, but of course he didn't always make it. Still, if she got pregnant, that was _her_ fault. And she'd been pregnant three times total. Both times she'd felt that life go out of her, she'd been simultaneously relieved and filled with sorrow. "Lori, this doesn't have to be a bad thing. Rick's a good father. He's a good man. I know you two are a little distant right now, but he'll do the right thing."

Lori shook her head. "Did you forget that the world ended? That we have no hospitals, no obstetricians, no gynecologists?"

"Darlene will - "

"Darlene's a damn nurse!" Lori lowered her voice and continued, "She's not a surgeon. I had a C-Section with Carl. What if I need one again?"

"She _did_ save Sophia."

"Yeah, and told you she may never walk quite right again. Sophia may have a limp her entire life. Or did you forget that part?"

Carol _wanted_ to say "Fuck you, Lori!" and was a little shocked by her own harsh feelings. She'd been so used to tempering them for so long around Ed, that she'd almost stopped feeling them. She let herself feel her own irritation now, but she didn't _express_ it. Lori was scared, and scared people were often angry or bitter. Carol knew that. So the the less severe words that actually came out of her mouth were, "Well I certainly wouldn't rather Sophia have died."

Lori sighed. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Carol. I'm just so stressed out about this. I wish I could know for sure."

"We could search the cabins for a pregnancy test on our way back. We never emptied the medicine cabinets. Just the pantries."

"Rick will want to know why I want to go looking through medicine cabinets."

"We could - "

Andrea walked through the doorway with a few more handfuls of brass, which she dropped in the bucket Carol had set on the floor. The empty casings cascaded down the metal sides and clattered on top of the existing layer. She looked at the lingering evidence of Lori's tears. "Everything okay in here?"

"Everything's fine," Carol said. "All this gunpowder and lead in here is really making my eyes water." She rubbed her eyes. "What about you, Lori?"

Lori took the hint. "Yeah, mine, too."

"Lori and I are going to go ahead and head back to the big cabin," Carol said. "Why don't you and Rick finish cleaning up the range and then lock up everything? You can take the RTV back. We'll walk. I need the exercise."

Andrea nodded, and Lori followed Carol out of the shed.


	38. Blooming Together

Carol kept her hand on the butt of her handgun as they walked through the woods to the front of the cabin nearest the range. Even though they had cleared all these cabins, she went through the process again, with her knife drawn, just to be sure, and also for practice. Lori hovered near her. Lori was carrying a gun now, too, though she hadn't actually shot it at anything but a paper target yet.

When Carol was sure the cabin was empty, she and Lori checked out the medicine cabinet and the vanity in the main bathroom, and they _did_ actually find a pregnancy test. Two, in fact.

After taking the test, Lori lay it on the back of the toilet and opened the door to invite Carol inside to wait with her while it developed. As they were waiting, Carol began to fill a backpack she had found in the hall closet with some things from the bathroom: mouthwash, toothpaste, unopened toothbrushes, asprin, Nyquil, Visine, and condoms.

Lori smiled at the condoms. "You and Daryl getting friendly in that lonely cabin?"

"What? No!" Carol violently zipped up the backpack. "I figured Darlene would want them."

"The way she and T-Dog go at it, I'd guess so." Lori rolled her eyes. "I don't know why I let Rick's comment rile me up. Darlene _is_ a firecracker in bed. And there's no way in hell Rick would be able to keep up with her anyway. He's not very adventurous."

Carol flushed at the intimate detail and slung the backpack on her shoulder.

"Don't get me wrong," Lori said. "He's considerate in bed. Affectionate, thoughtful, gentle. He's just kind of boring. He doesn't like to experiment very much."

That sounded fantastic to Carol. She didn't feel the need to inhabit a porn movie. A little considerate, non-adventurous, affectionate sex would be just _fine_ in her book. "You're lucky to have Rick," Carol told her. "He's a good man."

"Don't tell me you're sweet on him, too?" Lori shook her head and leaned against the closed, artificially frosted window. "The world ends and suddenly my rather ordinary husband becomes a very hot commodity. Darlene's wearing tight tank tops around him. Andrea's telling him what a great teacher he is. Even you, now?"

Carol wasn't about to go full-Darlene on Lori, but she'd had enough. She couldn't keep holding back her opinions. "Rick is _not_ ordinary, Lori. Kind, capable, loyal family men are _not_ a dime a dozen! And the world did end. Civilization - all the things keeping bad people in check - ended. And that unfortunately puts women like us in a very vulnerable place. So if you've got a man who cares about you - who will protect you and _not_ hurt you - you're pretty damn lucky in this world. You ought to see that and not risk losing it."

"Is that why you've been pretending to like Daryl?" Lori asked.

"What?"

"So you can have someone strong to protect you in this world? Even is he's not the kind of man any woman would want to be around in the old world?"

" _I_ would want to be around Daryl in _any_ world!" Carol, surprised by her own volume, lowered her voice. "He's a man of honor. And I'm not _pretending_ to like him. There's _plenty_ to like about him. He's sweet to Sophia. He's out there right now teaching your son to catch frogs. He hunts for us. He tracked us down and rescued us after we had to flee the quarry."

Carol waited for Lori to say she was sorry, to show some contrition, but her face was strangely hard. "Rick never would have been in Atlanta in the first place if Daryl hadn't insisted on going after his asshole of a brother. If Rick was in that camp, Amy might not have died. Dale might not have died. Jacqui might not have died. Shane might not have died."

"Shane," Carol echoed. "You need to _forget_ about Shane. You need to make Rick your priority. And you can't blame Daryl for any of their deaths. Daryl's more than earned his place. And if your husband hadn't left Merle chained to that roof in the first - "

"- Merle," Lori interrupted her, the name dripping like disdain itself from her tongue. "The man who beat T-Dog, pulled a gun on everyone, and held a gun to my temple!" She put a finger against her head. "Daryl's brother. The madman he _brought_ into our camp. The madman he tried to bring _back_ into it."

"The man he left on the side of a road in Kentucky, even though he was blood! Do you have any idea how hard that was for him, to choose us over Merle? Daryl has made sacrifice after sacrifice for this group. I can trust him, rely on him - "

"- You _do_ really like him."

"Of course I do!"

Lori looked down at the pregnancy test on the cool, white ceramic of the toilet's back.

Carol's gaze followed and fell on the evidence in the window. "Congratulations," she said hollowly.

They didn't talk on the entire walk home. When they got back to the big cabin, all of the windows and doors were open to let in some air, because there was a spit of six skinned frogs slow roasting on the fireplace, and it was already a warm afternoon. Beth, Carl, and Sophia were sitting around the coffee table and playing Risk.

"Where's your dad?" Lori asked as she sat down in an empty armchair. Carol took the chair opposite her.

"He went to scout out the road down the other side of the mountain," Carl answered. "To make sure there's no campers or big groups of walkers." "Just him?" Lori asked with alarm.

"Mr. Dixon went with him," Sophia said.

"And T-Dog," Beth added. "He went with them, too."

Carol supposed Beth considered herself more woman than girl, if she was calling everyone by their first names.

"Did you have fun catching frogs?" Lori asked her son.

Carl rolled two dice. "Yeah." Sophia rolled three dice, and then plucked two of his armies off the board and moved into his empty territory. "He told me all about the War Between the States."

"Did he now?" Lori asked skeptically.

"Did you know that if Robert E. Lee hadn't resigned his commission in the U.S. Army, and he'd led the Union forces, the war would have been over in less than six months? And that General Grant was a fall-down drunk? And that Colonel Pemberton invented Coca-Cola and it used to have real cocaine in it!"

"I wouldn't get your history from Mr. Dixon if I was you," Lori warned him. "And speaking of lessons, it's time for you two to start home school. 6th grade math. Come on. Put the game away. We'll have lunch and then school work."

"But I was winning!" Sophia whined.

"Can I help teach?" Beth asked. "I always wanted to be a teacher."

"I'd love your help," Lori assured her.

Carol made her way to the kitchen and found Darlene there, scrubbing up the counters. "Damn frog blood," she muttered.

"I thought you didn't know how to skin well?"

Darlene rinsed off the sponge. "I can do fish and frogs. Just not big game."

"What's Daryl's middle name?" Carol asked. If anyone knew, it would be Darlene.

"No idea."

"He said it starts with a B and that he hates it."

"I was four years ahead of him in school, so I ain't never heard a teacher scold him with his full name. Or his mama, neither, though I heard her scold Merle plenty. Can't be any worse than his. Merle's is Cooter."

"Good Lord. That _is_ awful."

"What's yours?" Darlene asked.

"Anne."

"That's pretty. Fits perfect with Carol. I ain't got one." She tossed the sponge in the sink."Are you gonna season those legs up for lunch? I just put 'em on a spit for now. Didn't know what you wanted to do with 'em."

"I'll come up with something."

And Carol did. They all agreed the frog legs tasted like chicken, except for Glenn, who thought they tasted like fish.

"Aren't we saving some for the men?" Carol asked.

"I _am_ a man," Glenn reminded her, and Maggie snickered.

"She meant the men who aren't here, obviously." Maggie looked at the empty plate. "There's nothing left to save."

"They packed lunch anyway," Sophia said, and then the girl licked each one of her fingers, one by one, just like she'd seen Daryl do a dozen times.

Carol suppressed her laugh. "Don't do that, sweetie. That's crude. Use your napkin."

[*]

The dark purple thread pulled through the brown leather. Carol rocked in the chair on the front porch of the small cabin and then made another stitch. The sound of a motorcycle roared toward her. Instinctively, she reached for her handgun before realizing it was only Daryl, cresting the mountain from the other side. He pulled his bike into the line of vehicles that blocked off the road on the top side and then strolled down the hill toward the porch.

Carol's heart seized. "Why aren't Rick and T-Dog with you?" she called.

"They's fine," he yelled back, and she began sewing again.

Soon enough, he was clamoring up the porch steps. He leaned his crossbow against the wooden logs of their small cabin and then plunked a beer bottle down on the end table next to her rocking chair. A single Black-eyed Susan peeked out of the top, its bright yellow petals fanning out around its dark brown center. Technically, this was the second time he'd brought her a flower.

Before she could thank him for the surprising gesture, Daryl leaned back against the porch rail and said, "Rick and T-Dog's comin' up the other side in the pick-up. Scouted to the bottom. Ain't nothin' down that road. Blocked it off where it meets the highway with a bunch of logs. Only one way up now. They's gonna drive on the highway to the other side. Tear down that sign." There was a large, brown informational sign on the highway with an arrow pointing up the main dirt road and the words, _Hideaway Cabins._

"So I take it we're not welcoming strangers?"

"Strangers like the ones shot up the nursin' home? Strangers like Negan?"

"There must still be some good people in this world," she said.

"Yeah, well, reckon this'll at least slow the bad 'uns down."

"Makes sense." Carol yanked the thread through a tight spot before digging the needle into the leather again. "Did your nana tell you the story behind this flower, too?" She nodded to the beer bottle. She was trying to think why he might have brought it to her. The Cherokee rose was to comfort her when she though she might lose her daughter, but what was this one for?

Daryl cast his eyes down at the flower. "'S from a poem."

"What's the poem about?"

"Pretty girl named Susan with black eyes. Comes on board a ship lookin' for her lover Sweet William 'fore he sets off to war on the high seas."

"That's it?"

"'Mhmhm. Sweet William's a flower, too. Ain't native, but if'n ya sew it with Black-eyed Susans, they'll bloom the same time."

"So they'll grow together when they're thrown together by fate, even though they come from different worlds?"

His thumbnail went straight into his mouth. "Mhmhm."

"I like that." Carol tied off her thread, cut it, and slid the needle back into the pin cushion on the table by her chair. "Can I try this sleeve on you?"

Daryl dropped his thumb from his mouth and stretched out his bare arm for her. She stood and slid the leather over his flesh. The sleeve was supposed to stretch all the way up almost to his shoulder. He could wear it over his bare skin with his sleeveless t-shirt in spring and summer, or underneath a long-sleeve button-down in fall and winter. But the leather wouldn't stretch over his bicep. He was standing very still as she struggled to work the sleeve up. Eventually, she abandoned her efforts and peeled it back off. "Your arms are even more muscular than I realized. That one will have to be for Rick. Can I measure you?"

He submitted to the tape measure being wrapped around his tricep and then his bicep. Carol took a long time getting the tape correctly in place. She messed up and let it slip loose twice, and had to touch his muscles to get it just right. She expected him to flinch, but it felt more like he shivered. Carol stood close and bent her head to read the number. When she looked up, Daryl was looking down at her. For the first time, their eyes met straight-on. His were a sharper shade of blue than she'd realized. At times, they'd seemed more blue-gray, but face to face like this, they were cloudless and piercing. But then those blues flitted away and he bit his bottom lip.

The tape unraveled slowly from his arm. "You need to stop doing that," she told him. "You'll make yourself bleed."

He released his bottom lip from the grip of his teeth. It slid out, a little raw.

"Doesn't it hurt?" Before she quite realized what she was doing, Carol was running two fingertips over his bottom lip. His mouth came open slightly, and she could feel the warmth of his breath on her fingers. His lip was rough and warm and a little moist. She pulled her hand quickly away when she caught herself doing it.

He didn't say anything about it. Instead, he asked, "Hell the brass for?"

Carol stepped away from him and looked into the bucket of spent shell casings she'd brought back from the range. "That's what I'm going to use for the outer layer on the sleeves. I'll unravel them, then face them up. The brass is sharp and jagged. It'll hurt when they bite. Might at least make them pause."

"Smart thinkin'."

Carol smiled.

"Gettin' on evenin," he said. "Ya should take a break and start cookin' dinner."

She laughed. "I should take a break and do more work?" she asked.

"Thought ya like to cook."

"I like to sew, too. But they're both work."

"Know that. Didn't mean..." He bent his head. "Ya do a lot of work 'round here," he muttered. "Ain't unappreciated." He looked over the rail and down the road. "Better check on Rick and T-Dog." Daryl slipped from the porch and clobbered down the stairs. She watched his familiar swagger as he began to make his way down to the lower cabin.

"Bo!" she called after him. "Is that it? Is that your middle name?"

"No!" he yelled back without turning back.

"Buddy?"

"Ya ain't never gonna guess it. And I ain't tellin'!"


	39. Clothes Shopping

After super, Lori asked Carol to the back porch. When the kitchen door was shut behind them, Lori told her, "I'm sorry we fought. You're right. Daryl _has_ earned his place. I'm just still bitter about everything Merle put this group through. I thought I was going to die when he had that gun to my head."

"Apology accepted," Carol told her.

The porch overlooked another part of the tree-lined mountain range. The sun was setting gloriously in soft shimmers of color into the tree tops. Nature went on spinning its web of beauty no matter how ugly the monsters walking across the earth's surface. There was something reassuring in that.

"I can't have this baby," Lori said.

Carol's fingers curled around the rough wood of the porch railing. "It's a little late for any kind of morning after pill."

"I'm sure there are other ways to induce miscarriage. Women were doing it for years before modern medicine. I'm sure Darlene knows how. I'm thinking of asking her for help."

"So you trust her to abort it safely, but not to deliver it safely?"

"I can't be pregnant in this world, Carol."

"Have you told Rick?"

Lori shook her head.

"You have to tell him, Lori. It's not fair to him not to – "

"- He's not the father. I'm sure you've guessed that." And now her voice changed. It almost cracked. "I'll _lose_ him if I tell him. He's already guessed about Shane. Maybe he's willing to put that behind us now, but if I have Shane's _child_...That's _always_ going to be a reminder to Rick of what I've done."

"You thought Rick was _dead_ , Lori. You didn't _know_. You wouldn't have done it if you had known. Just tell him that."

"Except...I toyed with the possibility. Before all this. I _flirted_ with Shane. I always knew it was an option."

"But you didn't take the option?" Carol asked.

"No. But I came close," Lori admitted. "Rick and I were on the verge of divorce before any of this happened. We weren't connecting anymore. I felt like I was just stuck with him, because I gave up my career to raise Carl. And now…now he's the best man left on earth. But he's still that old, familiar husband, and we have all the same baggage we've always had, plus more. It's all so strange."

"History is history," Carol told her. "I didn't know Rick before all this, but I doubt he's exactly the same man. None of us are the same. Here, we _all_ get to start over. You and Rick get to start over, too. Together. But you have to…you have to let him _in_ , Lori."

The door open. Lori jumped when Rick poked his head through the opening. "Sophia and Carl made dessert," he said. "Fruit cocktail with canned whip cream. Fancy stuff."

"I'll help her put it on the table." Carol eased past Rick and left the couple alone on the porch. They never came in for dessert, and their bowls were still on the table when Sophia handed her crutches to Carol. Daryl hunched down and the girl climbed on for her piggy back ride up the hill to their little cabin.

[*]

When Carol came out from putting Sophia to bed that night, Daryl was on watch. She curled up on the couch with a novel to wait up for him, knowing he got in at midnight. When he did come in, and slumped down in the armchair to kick off his boots, he said, "Tea last night was a'ight."

She smiled and put a bookmark on page 150. "I'll make you some." It had always grated on her when Ed expected her to fetch things for him, but Daryl's subtle asking was different. It showed a hint of vulnerability that he was willing to ask anyone for anything at all. She went so far as to put a honey straw in his cup. He didn't squeeze it and stir it into the tea like he was supposed to. Instead, he sucked the honey straight out of the bottom of the straw.

Carol sat down on the couch and rotated her shoulder.

"Ya a'ight?" he asked.

"It's just the kick back from that big rifle Rick let me shoot a little this morning. I'm not used to it."

"Ya didn't shoot the .22?"

"I did, but he also let me shoot the .416."

"Gave ya the Rem Mag? Thing's a bruiser." Daryl shoved the straw back into his cup, set it on the coffee table, and licked the honey that had spilled onto his fingers, slowly sucking the last digit clean before pushing the coffee table chest – which was on wheels – away from the armchair to clear a space on the area rug. "C'mere."

Surprised, Carol came and sat on the rug between his legs. She flinched for a second when he began to rub her shoulder. He was a bit rough as his thumb dug into a knot. He must have realized his own strength, because his touch relaxed. The rubbing became slower and more gentle. She thought she heard his breathing slow too. She knew hers did.

Carol closed her eyes and relished the touch. She leaned back between his legs against the chair and murmured her pleasure.

Daryl stopped rubbing suddenly, and his hand slid away. She looked back at him to see why he'd stopped so abruptly, and he swallowed and looked away. "Ya better get to sleep," he said. "'S late."

Carol stood and, to ease the tension, asked, "Is it Buck? Your middle name?"

"No. And I ain't tellin'."

Carol smiled. "Goodnight, Daryl," she murmured softly as she headed off to bed.

[*]

Carol marked her days in meals. On Monday, there was possum, greasy but filling. On Tuesday, it was barbecue snake - chewy but well seasoned. On Wednesday, Daryl bagged two big rabbits, but he said they were inedible when he cut them open. "Got wolves."

"Got what?" Carol asked.

"Wolf worms. Parasites. Ain't worth shit." He chucked them angrily off the back porch, down the rocky hill, so they had bean salad that night instead - a mixture of canned garbanzos, black eyed peas, and kidneys, with some spices thrown in. It would have been much better with some vegetables, and that was when Rick got the notion to search the cabin sheds and garages for seeds and start a garden. Andrea started calling him "Farmer Rick."

On Thursday, the squirrels Daryl caught were all infested, except two, so it was a thin squirrel stew that night. "Be better later in fall," he promised. "Still too damn hot. Too many bugs."

On Friday, Andrea took Beth fishing in the stream, as they'd done all week long, but this time they actually caught something. Six somethings, as a matter of fact. That night they had a fish fry. Andrea accidentally referred to Beth as Amy, and there was a roll call of the dead and a solemn remembering.

On Saturday, Daryl killed a beaver, and Glenn could not stop giggling when they ate it. Carl and Sophia kept asking him why it was so funny, and Darlene said, "'Cause Glenn ain't never ate a beaver in his whole damn life." Water spewed out of Maggie's mouth as she laughed, while Glenn's face turned an odd, purplish red.

On Sunday, they had groundhog for dinner, and, by then, everyone knew Lori was pregnant, because Rick announced it in the the most un-subtle way: "When are we going to have some venison for the hungry mama? Lori's eating for two now, you know."

"Workin' on it," Daryl promised. "Gettin' on fall. Woods'll be hoppin' by November."

"Wait. What?" Carl asked.

Rick smiled and told him, "You're going to be a big brother. It's an important job, Carl."

Carl looked confused, then worried, then grinned from ear to ear. "Cool!"

Carol thought Rick was overplaying his enthusiasm a bit, and Lori looked wary when he made his reveal. Still, Carol was glad Lori had finally told her husband. Maybe Rick thought the baby was his. Carol found men didn't know much about ovulation and cycles and pregnancy.

"Nah, reckon he knows," Daryl told her when they talked about it that night in the living room, during what had become their ritual. Every night after Sophia was in bed, Daryl would tinker with his bow, or clean his rifle or his handgun, or sharpen his knife, while Carol would read a book or sew, and they'd sip tea and talk a little here and there. "Man ain't a dumb ass. Just decided the kid's gonna be his."

"That's pretty noble, don't you think?"

"Just what a man does when he's got a woman that's his. If she's his, so's 'er kids."

[*]

Daryl marked his days in unexpected touches. He was learning not to flinch.

The Monday after Rick revealed Lori's pregnancy, Carol slowly slid the new, protective sleeve she'd sewn him up his arm. It fit perfectly. She squeezed his bicep, once, and asked, "How's it feel?"

"Strange."

"It'll feel even stranger when I put the brass on, so let's hope it works."

On Tuesday, he cut himself on the brush in pursuit of a deer. The deer escaped, but Carol gently rubbed antibiotic into the lashes on his bare arms. Her fingertips were warm, like ash that has just begun to cool.

On Wednesday, Carol's neck was sore from gardening with Rick, and Daryl dared to offer her a rub again. She sat on the floor between his feet, and he struggled not to look down the front of her shirt from behind while his fingers worked out the knots. But the third time his eyes fell on her cleavage, he felt like a perv for sneaking so many peeks, and he stopped rubbing.

On Thursday morning, she squeezed past him in the kitchen to get to a cupboard, and her ass brushed his hip.

On Friday, Carol insisted on giving him a haircut, even though he told her he wanted to grow it long to hide his ear. The thing was hideous - scared and a bit off center ever since Darlene stitched it back on. "Your ear's perfectly cute," Carol told him, and then she bent and kissed it, quickly, just once, mostly on the earlobe.

Daryl froze in the chair. She took the towel off him and shook out the hair on the kitchen floor. He sat there, stunned, for another three minutes before he could make himself get out of the chair.

[*]

Swimming weather would soon be a thing of the past. So, on a warmer-than-usual early fall day, the entire group went for a swim where the stream formed a four-foot-deep pool.

Daryl volunteered to keep watch along the bank, even though they hadn't seen a walker in weeks. Carol knew he just didn't want to take off his shirt or get into trunks. Most everyone had found a bathing suit that fit in one of the cabins, except T-Dog, who swam in sports shorts, and Sophia, who sat in jean shorts and a T-shirt in the shallow end playing with rocks and attempting to catch water bugs as the cool water lapped at her still healing leg.

After swimming for a while, Carol waded toward the shore and settled down to sit in the shallow water behind a large rock, where she could overhear, but not see, Glenn and Daryl talking on the bank.

"Beth ain't legal," came Daryl's gravely drawl.

"I wasn't even looking at her!"

"Were too. Saw ya."

"Not the way you were looking at Carol," Glenn countered defensively.

Daryl was deadly silent for a moment, and then he repeated, "Beth ain't legal."

That night, when Sophia was in bed, and Daryl was sharpening his knife in the living room as the steam rose off his tea cup, Carol asked, "So…how do you know who is and is not _legal_?"

Daryl tensed and his sharpening stone froze on his knife. "Overheard that?"

"I was sitting by the rock."

"Wasn't watchin' ya. Don't know what Glenn was talkin' 'bout."

"He was just being defensive. I'm sure I'm the last woman in our camp that any man would want to watch."

The stone made a whisk-whisk-whisk sound against the blade as he began sharpening again, a bit ferociously.

"So, how _do_ you know?" she asked. "That Beth's not _legal_."

"Merle carried a card in his wallet. Age of consent, state-by-state."

"Seriously?" she asked.

"Mhmhm."

"And what's it in Georgia?"

"Sixteen."

"So Beth _is_ legal?" Carol asked.

"I lied."

Carol chuckled. "You know Glenn likes _Maggie,_ anyway, right?" Not that liking Maggie would preclude him from noticing that Beth was pretty. Men were men. Carol was sure they _all_ snuck appreciative glances at Darlene, Lori, Maggie, and Andrea from time to time. Why had so many beautiful women survived the superflu and the first ravages of the undead? Why hadn't more ordinary women like Carol survived?

The stone whisked one last time over the blade, and then Daryl lay both stone and knife down on the coffee table. He picked up his tea cup, sat back in the arm chair, and studied the liquid while he spoke. "Ain't true."

"Darlene and I both think it's obvious. Even Sophia thinks Glenn likes Maggie."

"Nah. Not that. Ain't true yer the last woman a man'd wanna watch. Just as pretty as any of 'em."

"Oh." Did he _really_ think that?

"But I weren't watchin'. Thought I saw a walker in the woods on the other side of ya is all."

Until now, it hadn't occurred to Carol that Daryl actually _had_ been watching. She assumed Glenn was just trying to defend his own wandering eye. But Daryl was protesting a bit too much, and he seemed very uncomfortable. To be honest, so was she. She felt a little warm, even though it had dropped to sixty-five outside. "Bart?" she asked. "Is that your middle name?"

Daryl looked relived by the change in subject. "Nah."

"Barney? Like the purple dinosaur?"

"No."

"Barry?"

He drained the rest of his tea while shaking his head.

"Baxter?"

"Ya think my mama gonna give me a rich asshole's name?" He stood and took her empty tea cup from her hand.

"Buford! Like the city in Georgia." Buford was pretty awful, and pretty redneck. Carol felt like she had to have stumbled on a winner.

He took their cups to the sink, saying, "Ya ain't never gonna guess, woman."

"What's my prize if I _do_ guess?" she called after him.

"Anythin' ya want. 'Cause ya ain't never gonna guess."

[*]

The next week was much cooler, and after sunset, the temperature was dropping into the fifties. One afternoon before dinner, the women went shopping in the cabins for light fall outerwear. Darlene took them to a four-bedroom place a way down the mountain where she said they'd killed four female walkers.

Carol and Lori found themselves in one of the rooms alone together. As Carol slid a soft, zippered, gray fleece hoodie on, she said, "We should start looking for maternity clothes for you." Lori already had a little bit of a baby bump going.

Lori seemed unenthusiastic about the idea. "I doubt pregnant women vacation in the mountains. I'll just wear bigger clothes." She pulled a white, button-down sweater off a hanger.

"You all right?" Carol asked her.

"No, Carol, I'm not all right. I'm carrying around a dead man's child, and my husband's pretending to be all righteous and fatherly even though he knows it's not his, but at night, when we're alone, I can feel his disappointment." She yanked the sweater on around her shoulders. "I can feel it, rolling off him like a wave."

"He loves you and he's trying to do the right thing. But you have to let him be human."

Lori shut the closet door as Darlene, wearing a sparkly little jean jacket, entered. Only Darlene could pull off something as kitschy as that, Carol thought as she zipped up her new hoodie.

"Woman who wore this," Darlene said, turning in a circle to model her cute jacket, "also liked to hide chocolate in her underwear drawer and box wine in her closet. So I say, after dinner tonight, let's forget the alcohol rations and have us a girl's night. All you can drink."

"Did someone say girl's night?" Maggie asked from the doorway.

"Where'd you find the leather?" Darlene exclaimed jealously, looking over the dark brown jacket Maggie had thrown on. "Look at these zippers!"

"Come on, there's more in that closet," Maggie told her.

When Darlene followed Maggie out the room, Carol opened the closest again to see if she could find anything more attractive than the first thing she'd instinctively plucked down. In the end, though, she just settled on a light brown corduroy jacket. It wasn't pretty, but it was _practical._ It wouldn't be easily torn by brush in the forest, and it would blend in. Besides, who did she have to impress? Daryl wouldn't notice if she was wearing the crown jewels.

[*]

When Carol got back to the big cabin, a little behind the other women, Daryl was cutting up something on the picnic table to the left of the front porch. Brown and white feathers lay scattered over the ground below. The sunlight glinted off the blade of the cleaver in his hand. The cleaver thudded against the wood of the picnic table, and Carol flinched instinctively. A clawed foot shot off and landed in a patch of grass.

"What's that?" she asked.

"Grouse. Got two."

"What's it like?" she asked.

"Chicken."

"You say that about everything."

"Even _more_ like chicken then."

She chuckled. "I'll go start the fire and get some seasoning together."

He glanced up from his work and looked her over quickly. "That'll hold up." He dropped his eyes to the plucked, skinned birds again.

"What do you mean?" she asked. "What'll hold up?"

"Mean yer the only one didn't come back with a dumb ass girly jacket."

"You didn't like Maggie's? You've got a leather vest yourself."

"Leather's fine. But all them zipper's gonna get caught on shit."

Carol laughed. Daryl _wouldn't_ have noticed the crown jewels. But he _had_ noticed how practical her jacket was.

"What's so funny?" he muttered.

"Nothing. Thank you for hunting for us."

"'S my job." The cleaver slammed down against the wooden tabletop again.


	40. Girls' Night

After the communal dinner, Sophia and Daryl hung back at the big cabin, while the four women retreated to the little cabin for their "Girl's Night." Lori didn't come - she was having night sickness instead of morning sickness. Beth also stayed behind, because Maggie told her she wasn't "old enough." Beth fumed at being sidelined, but she softened when the youngest Grimes told her they had a portable DVD player, a copy of _The Princess Bride,_ and Jiffy Pop they could make on the wood stove.

"She's in that in-between stage," Maggie told the other women as they sat around the kitchen table playing Hearts and drinking the big box of red wine out of real wine glasses. "Not quite woman, not quite girl."

"How's she been?" Andrea asked. "You know..."

"She's completely stopped talking about killing herself," Maggie answered. "I think she's going to be okay. It's helped, this...family? Can I call y'all that?"

Darlene shifted her cards in her hand. "As long as you don't think of Glenn as your brother."

Carol chuckled.

Maggie rolled her eyes. "Is this what it's going to be like all night?"

"Just sayin'," Darlene told her. "It's obvious he likes you."

"Yeah, I can see that." Maggie put down a card. "But I'm not sure if I want to give him the green light. He's really nice, but...he's kind of a dweeb."

"Ain't like you've got a lot of choices around here," Darlene told her.

"True," Maggie agreed. "And sometimes a girl's got an itch that just has to be scratched."

"Too bad Lori's already snatched up the best guy," Andrea said.

Darlene lowered her hand and peered at her over the table. "Don't you dare go sniffing around another woman's tree."

"I'm not sniffing around _any_ trees," Andrea insisted. "Who needs a man? I've got a good vibrator and extra pack of batteries and that entire study to myself."

"So when the world was ending," Maggie asked, "you stopped to pack a vibrator?"

Andrea recorded the score on a notepad. "Don't you wish you had?"

They all laughed, even Carol. Carol couldn't remember the last time she'd had a "girl's night." That year before Sophia was born, probably, when she'd quilted blankets for the homeless with a bunch of sassy old church ladies, and they'd laughed and sipped sherry while they worked. She hadn't gone back for the second quilting group meeting, though. Ed had decided those grandmothers were _too modern_.

"I'm thinking I _might_ let Glenn kiss me," Maggie admitted. "Just out of curiosity. Just to see if he's any good."

"Speakin' of matches that are slow to light..." Darlene said as she collected the cards and dealt another hand, "Daryl still sleepin' on that hard, uncomfortable floor?"

Carol flushed. "Shush."

"Just sayin'," Darlene told her. "You could at least _offer_ to let him share that huge bed. That would be the _neighborly_ thing to do."

"I need more wine." Carol slid her glass beneath the tap of the box and pushed the button all the way down until the glass filled almost to the brim with light red liquid.

Maggie looked gleefully from Darlene's face to Carol's. "Do you actually _like_ him like that?" she asked.

Carol set down her wineglass and picked up her hand of cards. "Who's turn is it?"

"Yours," Andrea told her.

They play resumed. Carol was about two glasses of wine in when Andrea and Maggie began speculating about Daryl's middle name.

"Maybe it's a girl's name," Maggie suggested.

Darlene shook her head as she lay down a trump card. "No way in hell Will Dixon would of given his son a _girl's_ name."

"Did you actually know Daryl's dad?" Andrea asked.

"Yep. Kicked him in the balls once. Good and hard."

"Why?" Andrea played a card.

"'Cause he grabbed my ass. I was twenty-two when he did it, and Will Dixon was forty-something. But I tell you what - he never tried to grab my ass again."

"I can't imagine Daryl grabbing some woman's ass," Maggie said.

"Daryl ain't nothin' like his daddy," Darlene assured her.

"Was his dad more like Merle?" Andrea asked.

"A bit," Darlene said. "But not nearly as smart as Merle."

"Merle's not exactly smart," Andrea said.

"Oh, he is," Darlene said. "Almost topped out on that test you gotta take when you go into the military. Man just _acts_ like a dumb ass 'cause he ain't got no self-control."

"Who's Merle?" Maggie asked.

Andrea explained. Stories were told. Maggie's eyes widened.

"As long as we're gossipin'..." Darlene looked both ways in a dramatic display and then leaned forward confidentially, "I always suspected Daryl's _real_ daddy was Will Dixon's brother Clevus, who died when Daryl was thirteen, and that Daryl's so-called cousin Billy Ray was actually his half-brother."

"Really?" Carol asked.

"Don't mention it to him," Darlene said. "Gets pissed off if you suggest his mama might of cheated."

"Yeah, I know that," Andrea said. "I remember that from back in the quarry camp when I innocently asked if Merle was his half-brother because of the age difference."

"But...why do you think that?" Carol asked Darlene.

"'Cause Clevus always took a shine to Daryl he never took to Merle. Bought him his first rifle. His first crossbow too. That and Clevus got around a bit. He was a serious looker and a real charmer."

"It's hard to imagine that with a name like Clevus," Maggie said.

The conversation turned to what they missed about the old world, childhood celebrity crushes, and other topics. Carol was three glasses in and had lost the immediate thread of the conversation when Andrea said, across the table to Darlene, "And you snatched up the second best guy!"

"I wouldn't think T-Dog was at _all_ your type," Darlene replied.

"He's not. But he's still the second hottest guy in this camp."

"Well, we could have a threesome if you're up for it."

Maggie choked on her wine. Andrea's mouth dropped open. Carol blinked and wondered if she'd heard that correctly.

"I'm joking, ladies!" Darlene exclaimed. "I like my men all to myself. I demand a lot of undivided attention."

Maggie chuckled, Andrea shut her gaping mouth, and Carol poured herself some more wine.

"Now, a threesome with me and Rick _and_ T-Dog..." Darlene said.

Wine spluttered out of Maggie's mouth.

"Hey!" Andrea half-shouted, half-laughed. "Don't go sniffing around another woman's tree!"

After several more hands and a lot more laughter, the box of wine was completely empty. Maggie discovered the fact when nothing would pour into her glass. "How many glasses are in a box?"

"Best not to inquire too closely," Darlene told her.

Carol stood up to clear the box to the trash, found it a little more difficult to walk than she expected, and grabbed the counter for support. Darlene took the box from her hand. "Don't worry. I'm sure Daryl will get Sophia to bed. Might even tuck _you_ in, if you ask."

"Shush it," Carol said, but laughed.

Maggie chortled.

"Come on girls," Darlene told Maggie and Andrea. "Let me help y'all down to the big cabin."

Carol hoped Darlene was right about Daryl getting Sophia to sleep, because when the girls left the cabin, she stumbled her way to the king-size canopy bed and crawled on top of the comforter. As she closed her eyes, the room began to spin.

[*]

As Daryl walked back to the cabin with Sophia, he passed Darlene, who drew him aside and whispered that Carol was "a wee bit tipsy. Maybe passed out." So after making sure Sophia brushed her teeth and telling her to get in bed, Daryl left a water glass and two aspirin on Carol's nightstand.

Carol stirred at his presence, blinked herself awake, and sat up.

"Ya a'ight?" he asked.

She smiled, a different smile than he'd seen before - a little sultry. "Will you tuck me in, Sexy?" she asked. "Please?"

And then she reached out, grabbed him by the belt buckle, and yanked him until his legs hit the side of the bed and he stumbled forward, half on top of her, catching himself on the palms of his hands against the thick, pillow-top mattress. His crotch brushed against hers. He had a sudden moment of panic, very similar to the feeling that had overcome him, at the age of five, when Merle had taught him to swim by tossing him off the pier into the deep part of the lake. He couldn't breathe.

Daryl used his arms to push himself back up into a standing position, the same terrified way he'd clawed himself to the surface of the murky lake's water. His lungs began to work again. "Yer drunk," he said.

Carol giggled and lay all the way back down on the bed. "You're observant." She closed her eyes. "Please make the room stop moving."

Daryl peeled off her shoes and socks and threw the extra blanket over her.

 _Sexy?_ She must have been dreaming he was some other man.

[*]

Carol awoke late the next morning to a strange, unfamiliar sound. She sat bolt upright, but she didn't hear it again. Someone had taken off her shoes and socks, thrown a blanket over her, and set a glass of water and two aspirin on the night stand. Carol popped the pills, downed the water, and then heard the strange sound again.

It was Daryl.

Laughing.

It took her awhile to recognize that's what it was, because she had never before heard Daryl laugh. She'd heard him snort. _Pffft._ Chuckle. Even snicker. But she'd never heard him _laugh_. It was a unique laugh, hearty and masculine at the start and then trailing off higher than she would have expected. His laugh made her smile.

She slid out of bed, her head aching a little, and eased the door open to peer out curiously on the living room.

That laugh pierced the air again, loud and unexpected and then trailing off right into Sophia's giggles.

Daryl and her daughter were sitting on the couch with the portable DVD player in front of them on the coffee table. An open box of Lucky Charms was wedged into the gap in the cushions between them. Daryl dipped his bare hand into the box and then tossed a handful of cereal into his mouth. Some of it missed and slid down onto the couch below. Sophia dug between the cushions and pulled out a fallen piece and tossed it in her mouth, which made Carol cringe.

"Watch this, Soph! Watch this!" Daryl pointed to the screen. "'S best part."

There was a _boing_ sound, followed by a squeak, a crash, and then Daryl and Sophia both laughing.

Carol smiled, walked into the living room, and paused near the end table. "Watching Looney Tunes?" she asked.

"Wile E. Coyote's a dumb ass," Sophia said.

"Well, he's not too smart, but let's watch the language, honey, shall we?" Carol said.

"Sorry."

"And maybe think about eating your cereal in a bowl? In the kitchen?"

"Why?" Sophia asked. "Ain't got no milk."

"We do not _have_ _any_ milk," Carol corrected her.

Sophia looked up at Daryl, caught his eye, and they both snickered.

"I think I'm fighting a losing battle here," Carol said. "I'm just going to make some coffee."

Daryl rose and trailed her to the kitchen. "If yer sober now, goin' huntin'."

"I'm _perfectly_ sober," Carol insisted.

"Weren't last night."

She set the kettle on the stove. She didn't remember him and Sophia coming home. "Did I _say_ anything to you last night?" she asked.

"Nothin' much." His eyes avoided hers as he took a few steps around her to pluck up his crossbow from where he'd left it on the counter. "Just asked me to tuck ya in." His bow slid onto his shoulder like a second skin. He still wouldn't look at her. "So I did."

That explained the missing shoes and socks, the water glass, the aspirin, and the blanket. "Thank you. And thank you for getting Sophia to bed. And entertaining her this morning."

"Mhmh." He turned and walked through the living room, ruffled Sophia's hair like he was petting a stray puppy, and asked, "What ya want for super?"

"Wabbit," Sophia said and giggled. "Be vewy, vewy, quiet!"

Daryl chuckled and walked out the front door.

[*]

That evening, Daryl was cleaning his handgun when Carol sat down on the far end of the couch nearest his armchair and set his cup of tea beside the ejector rod. He didn't have to clean the gun today, but he needed something to do with his hands and eyes, because he knew she was going to talk at him, as she did every evening. He didn't mind Carol talking at him, really. Her voice was soothing to him, like a familiar background noise, like the song of crickets on a summer night. He just didn't want to be expected to talk back if he didn't feel like it. Except, more and more, he _did_ feel like it.

She pulled her legs up onto the couch, bent, so that her bare feet fell on the second cushion. She liked to sit like that, for some reason. It reminded him of a playful little girl, though Carol was certainly no little girl. "Bachelor," she said.

"What?"

"You're a Bachelor, I bet."

"Sure as hell ain't married."

"No, I was guessing your middle name. I used to know a boy name Bachelor in school."

"What the hell kind of name is that?"

"They called him Batch. Batch the Snatch. Because he was on the baseball team and he used to steal bases a lot. He was dreamy."

Daryl _hrmphed._

"Blonde, curly hair, haunting brown eyes, nose like a Greek god."

"'S damn special 'bout Greek gods' noses?"

"They're well chiseled." She sipped her tea.

"Nah." He began reassembling the gun. "Zeus had a big honker."

She chuckled. "Zeus got around though." She pointed her teach cup at him. "Bacchus!"

"That ain't my middle name. Think my daddy knew shit 'bout Greek mythology?"

"But you do, apparently."

"Only interestin' thing they taught in sixth grade." He clicked the last piece of his handgun in place and left it on the coffee table before picking up his tea cup, putting one bare foot up on the table, and resting back in the arm chair.

"Were you close to your uncle?" she asked. "Clevus?"

"'S family."

"Did you like him better than your father?"

"Reckon. Never beat on me none. Didn't beat on Billy Ray neither. Beat on my daddy some. Mostly when they's fightin' over stupid shit."

"Who was older?" she asked.

"My daddy. Still lost most of them fights, though."

"What did he do for a living?" she asked. "Your uncle?"

"Truck driver." One night, he fell asleep at the wheel and ran off the interstate and down a steep hill into some body of water. Daryl was in seventh grade at the time, and Billy Ray in ninth, and they'd left the wake to go shoot beer cans in Billy's daddy's honor, until they'd accidentally shot out someone's window, and then they'd run hooting and hollering into the woods. "What the hell ya care so much 'bout my Uncle Clevus for?"

"Just trying to get to know you better."

"Ya don't wanna know me better," he muttered. "My past ain't worth knowin'. If'n Darlene's been runnin' 'er mouth, don't listen to 'er. Knew me back before - " He stopped. He'd been about to say _before I was with you_. But he wasn't _with_ her.

"Before what?"

"Before I knew ya. I's even more of an asshole then. And only half her stories is true!"

Carol chuckled. "She doesn't tell me stories about you." She tilted her head and peered at him. "Bruno," she guessed.

"Look Italian to you?"

"I think Bruno's German, actually. How about Bunyan?"

Daryl relaxed, glad to be off the topic of his childhood. "Bunyan? Where the hell ya come up with these names?"

"Like Paul Bunyan. With the axe and the ox."

Daryl shook his head.

"Bushrod," she guessed.

" _Bushrod?_ "

She chortled. "That sounds vaguely sexual, doesn't it? Bush. Rod."

He flushed. There wasn't anything _vague_ about it. Carol had a dirty mind sometimes, like a young teenage boy. That was something he never would have guessed when he first met her. Embarrassed though he was, he couldn't stop his lips from twitching into a faint smile. "That ain't even a name, is it? Ya made that the hell up."

"Is too a name. And now it's yours." She smiled over her tea cup. "Daryl Bushrod Dixon."

"Stop."

[*]

September faded into October. Daryl felt more comfortable around Carol than he ever imagined he could feel around a woman. She made it easy with her gentle sociability, her refusal to be bothered by his lack of eye contact, her ability to change a subject at just the right moment, and her willingness, sometimes, to simply embrace the quiet.

He knew that Carol wasn't his in the way that Lori was Rick's, but she had had made that cabin into a home, and, somehow, they were _both_ a part of that home. Every time his steps mounted their porch stairs, he felt an unfamiliar peace descend like a warm cloak around him, and he thought of those old black and white T.V. shows he used to watch in reruns as a child, where the man would throw open the door, take off his hat, and say, "Honey, I'm home!" He'd spent hours watching those old family shows, like an anthropologist studying some forgotten, bizarrely foreign culture.

If Daryl couldn't bring himself to hope for more than the sound of Carol's voice as she read to Sophia at night, or the steaming cup of tea she set between his rough hands, or those evenings of friendship before the hearth, maybe that was only because it was already more than he had ever hoped for in his life.


	41. Autumn

In November, a quilt of red, orange, and golden leaves blanketed the forest floor, though the pine trees still stood tall and green except for a few needles that littered the earth in clumps here and there. Daryl started wearing a thick, long sleeve, flannel shirt beneath his sleeveless, black leather vest, and Carol teased him about looking like a biker lumberjack. "What are ya?" he asked. "The fashion police?"

Sophia had her splint removed and was now walking with the support of a cane instead of crutches. Daryl had taken to calling her "little granny," which made Sophia's eyes catch fire until Daryl chuckled and then Sophia laughed. Carol finally took her daughter to her grandfather's cabin and let the girl read the unfinished letter and look at the photos the old man had kept. Sophia cried for the grandfather she'd never met, more than she'd cried when her own father died.

The group emptied all the water tanks in the nine nearest cabins that fall and used a generator to run the electric pumps long enough to refill them twice. There was a heated discussion about who was wasting too much water.

The deer were sparser than Daryl had expected, even in the heart of autumn. He spent his days tracking an elusive buck, but always came back with only grouse, dove, or snake. Carol cooked, cleaned, sewed, and eventually succeeded in planting a neat group of bullets in the bullseye at the range. Andrea and Darlene reloaded ammunition while Glenn and Maggie flirted over mundane chores and T-Dog and Rick harvested the paltry scallions, turnips, and parsnips. The pumpkin seeds Rick had planted never sprouted at all. "The spring crop will be better," he vowed.

Lori, who had begun to show more noticeably, continued homeschooling the children. Beth sometimes learned and sometimes taught, still wavering between her role as child and woman. The group learned she had a beautiful voice, and one night after dinner, T-Dog brought a guitar he'd found in one of the cabins and accompanied Beth while she sang.

"I had no idea you played," Darlene said.

"I'm a man of many surprises."

"Well, I gotta say," Darlene told him while running her fingertips over his broad shoulders, "It's kind of hot."

"I can play a little," Glenn insisted, his eyes moving from Maggie to the guitar.

When T-Dog gave him the instrument, Glenn plucked out the notes to "You're a Grand Old Flag" one by one, and Maggie rewarded him with a hearty laugh.

[*]

Carol caught sight of movement through her scope. She lowered her rifle when she realized it was just Darlene, coming to relieve her. Carol tossed the rope ladder out of the tree house and yawned.

A zipper from one of the pockets on Darlene's black leather jacket got caught on the rope as she climbed up, and she yanked it out before cresting the platform. Carol handed her the binoculars, and Darlene draped them around her neck. "Got some juicy gossip."

"Do tell. "

"After you came out here for your watch," Darlene said, "Maggie asked Andrea to switch rooms with her. Andrea's got the extra bed in Beth's room now, and Maggie's got the study."

"Is that so?" Carol asked.

"So I guess Maggie and Glenn are finally a go. And Carl's probably going to end up with a room all to himself now."

Carol put the safety on and shouldered her rifle.

"You know who else has a room to herself?" Darlene asked. "You."

"Don't start," Carol warned her.

"Can't be comfortable for Daryl, sleeping on that wooden floor."

"Shush it."

"Seriously, girl, why haven't you invited him to share your bed yet?"

"That's a bit forward, don't you think?" Carol snapped the top of her corduroy jacket closed. "He might think I'm offering sex."

"And you wouldn't want that?" Darlene asked skeptically.

"I don't know what I want." That was only partially true. Carol at least knew she wanted to be closer to Daryl. _Somehow._ She wanted to touch him. All day long, she just wanted to touch him and _be_ touched by him and every time they _did_ touch - which was rare - she felt either a subtle shiver or an electric jolt. "And I certainly don't know what he wants."

"Oh, c'mon! He wants _you_."

"I'm not so sure about that. I've tried flirting often enough. He either freezes up or tells me to stop."

"Because he thinks you're poking fun!"

Darlene had a point. Carol had learned she could be brave with her flirtations only if she made them all sound like jokes. "Maybe."

"Listen, Carol, most men are pretty dense when it comes to women, but take that and multiply it by a factor of ten, and you got Daryl. You got to hit that man upside the head with a two by four. He ain't gonna make the first move. He's awkward enough around women as is, but add to that that he actually _likes_ you..." She shook her head. "You got to just invite him to bed. That's the only thing he'll understand."

"I've never done anything like that in my life."

"Well, before last week, you ain't never shot a half-inch group neither. There's a first time for everything."

Carol thought about Darlene's words as she made her way back to the little cabin. When she got inside, Daryl was lying in his sleeping bag in front of Sophia's open door, sleeping soundly. Sophia was a lump beneath two thick covers in the race car bed.

Carol was surprised he didn't jump awake the second she stood beside him, but he'd been on watch from four to six in the morning and then gone straight to the hunt. He must be exhausted. She poked him with the toe of her boot until he stirred awake. He had his knife unsheathed before he realized it was her, and then he slid it back.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

"Soph had a nightmare," he said. "Got scared." He stood and picked up his sleeping bag and began dragging it back to the living room. He left it in a pile on the floor and just crawled onto the couch instead.

Carol followed. "So you stayed there until she fell asleep again? So she would feel safe?"

"Mhmhm." Daryl curled into a fetal position and closed his eyes.

"Do you..." She faltered, but then steadied her nerves. Carol tried to sound as casual as possible. "Do you want to just share my bed? It's plenty big enough."

He snored.

Carol thought of that time her sophomore year of high school when she'd spent all day mustering up the courage to call a boy she liked. She was going to ask him to the Saddie Hawkins Day dance, but she'd been enormously relieved when no one had answered the phone.

That same sense of relief eased through her veins now. Carol pulled the afghan off the back of the couch and lay it gently over Daryl's curled body. She bent down, kissed the top of his head softly, and whispered "Goodnight" before slipping off - alone - to bed.

[*]

Thanksgiving came a week early, because Daryl caught a wild turkey. Carol had saved two cans of cranberry sauce, a jar of gravy, and three cans of green beans for just this occasion. They all gorged themselves until they could barely move. After that, dinner was light for a few days, and then one afternoon Daryl came back from the hunt, shouting, "Boo-yah!" as he emerged from the woods pulling a five-point buck on a drag sled.

Carol helped him butcher it, and T-Dog ran a generator so she could use two food processors to make sausages for storing. But that night, she cooked venison steaks - 16 ounces a piece. T-Dog kept running the generator long enough to get a deep freezer all the way to the frozen state. Carol put all the sausage inside, but they obviously couldn't run a generator non-stop. The meat would only stay safe about three days in the defrosting freezer, especially since they would have to open the door to snatch some each night. "We could run the generator an hour a day," T-Dog suggested. "After we take the meat out."

"This is _not_ a long-term solution to meat storage," Rick replied. "We're going to use up all our gas if we keep this up."

"I have an idea," Andrea told him. She'd found a _Survival Guide_ in the study of one of the cabins and showed the group the section on building a smoke house.

"We ought to try it," Rick agreed. "If Daryl can catch that other deer, it can feed us for a long time, if we can just manage to preserve it."

"I've actually done a barn raising with my father and neighbors," Maggie told them. "I could supervise the building of the smoke house."

"Got to go on that supply run to the village we keep puttin' off," Daryl said. "Almost December. Might get icy up here in a few weeks. Best to stay put in winter."

"I'll stay and help Maggie with the smokehouse," T-Dog said. "I used to volunteer for Habitat with Humanity."

"Of course you did," Darlene told him with a chuckle.

"I did too!" Glenn almost shouted. "The summer after high school." He looked at Maggie and smiled a little, like he was waiting for praise.

"Oughtta have three on the run," Daryl cautioned. "One to guard, two to load."

Darlene patted T-Dog's back. "Then T will go with y'all. He's got to get us some things." She winked at him. "We'll use Glenn's _expertise_ to build the smoke house instead." Glenn looked a little nervous.

"I'll come too," Rick said.

"Why you?" Lori asked. "Why not Darlene? She can pick locks."

"Darlene's the closest thing we've got to a doctor," Rick said. "She needs to stay in the camp. What if someone gets sick here?"

"What if someone gets injured out there?" Lori asked.

"It's not smart to let your doctor leave your camp," Rick told her. "That's like leaving your bag of guns in the front seat of an unlocked car."

"I don't like the idea of you leaving for the village," Lori told him. "Why do you always have to put yourself at risk?"

Rick put a hand over Lori's stomach. "Lori, this is how I provide for _my_ family."

Lori smiled guiltily. "Okay then," she whispered.

[*]

That night, Sophia asked Daryl to read to her before bed. Daryl appeared startled by the request. "Ain't much of a reader."

"But you're leaving on that run tomorrow," Sophia pleaded. "Please?"

"A'ight. But it ain't gonna be like yer mama does it. Cain't do the voices."

This time, it was Carol who sat in the armchair and listened to him read aloud. Sophia had chosen _The Giving Tree._ When he was done reading, Daryl asked, "Ain't this book a little young for ya?"

"But I love it," Sophia answered.

"Why? Damn depressin'."

"It's about unconditional love."

"Don't know much 'bout love, but this ain't it, Soph. Boy was an asshole to that tree."

"But the tree loved the boy," Sophia said.

"'Cause she's a dumb ass tree! What that boy ever do for her, 'cept take shit from 'er? Take her limbs and leaves and trunk and use 'er all up 'till she ain't nothin' but a stump, and then she still lets him sit all over 'er?"

"Oh," Sophia said softly. "Well, but...if you love someone, don't you want to give them everything you can?"

"Like I said, don't know shit 'bout love. Just know this ain't it. Boy ever treat ya like this boy treated that tree, ya tell 'em to fuck the hell off."

Carol raised an eyebrow. She was not a fan of the language Daryl used around her daughter, but he had a point.

"I'm never going to meet any boys but Carl anyway," Sophia said. "And he's probably going to marry Beth when he grows up. She's so, so pretty. And I'm ugly."

Carol's heart skipped a beat. How could Sophia think that of herself, at only twelve?

"Ya ain't ugly!" Daryl exclaimed. "Cute as a damn button. Got real pretty eyes just like yer mama." Carol's cheeks warmed. "And Carl ain't got a snowball's chance in hell with Beth. Girl's sixteen!"

"Yeah," Sophia replied, "but when he's eighteen, she'll be twenty-two."

Carol had not thought about any of this and was a little surprised to think that Sophia had. Of course, sixth grade was about the time Carol had started developing crushes on boys herself. The boys had been oblivious, however, as Carl surely was, but Carol had spent some bored classroom hours writing lists in her notebook, trying out her name with the last names of all the boys she liked. She tried out children's names, too.

 _Carol Anne Dixon,_ she thought now with a smile. Then the kids' names: _Lancelot Galahad Dixon. Marcus Aurelius Dixon. Austin Stone Dixon._ She sure had thought up some seriously ridiculous names for boys back then. The girls' names hadn't been much better. She'd drawn them all from city names: _Augusta Marietta Dixon. Savannah Aurora Dixon. Alexandria Phoenix Dixon._ Somehow every name sounded just a bit more serious with _Dixon_ on the end of it.

"Carl ain't good enough for ya anyhow," Daryl told Sophia. "Ya don't need no damn boys."

Their voices dropped to a murmur, and soon Daryl came out and shut the door behind himself. He sat down on the couch and said, as he had for the past several nights now, "Tea'd be nice."

But instead of reflexively offering to make it this time, Carol teased, "Would you like to make us some?"

"Me?" he asked in a tone of shock. "Dunno how."

"You don't know how to make tea?"

"Well...not like ya make it."

"It's hot water and a tea bag, Daryl."

"And sugar. Ya do the sugar just right."

Carol chuckled and stood. As she began to walk to the kitchen, she said, "Fine, I'll make you some tea, just like the dumb tree."

Daryl stood abruptly and outpaced her to the kitchen. "Make it myself." He grabbed the kettle roughly from the wood stove and filled it with water from the faucet.

Carol put her hand on the counter. "I was _teasing._ Sit down. I'll make it. I _like_ making you tea. And it's not like you don't do nice things for me. You fixed that window in my bedroom. You chopped the wood that's in that stove right now." She'd watched him chopping it, from the back porch while she was sewing, as a slick sweat broke out across the rippling sinews of his tanned arms. "I can manage to make you some tea."

Daryl set the kettle down on the wood stove and stepped aside. "So ya heard me talkin' to Sophia?"

Carol drew out two mugs from a cabinet. "You know you can hear from the living room when the door's open. You listen to me read to her every night."

He flushed as if she'd just exposed a dirty, secret habit of his.

Carol smiled at him. "It's nice to know I have pretty eyes."

Daryl found the pattern in the countertop suddenly fascinating. He studied it like a map. But to her surprise, he didn't fall silent. He asked, "Ya ever think 'bout that? What Soph said? Us still bein' here in four years?"

"That's the hope, right? That we won't be overrun by walkers. That we'll build a home." Carol settled the teabags in each of the cups. "There's only one tea bag left now."

He finally looked up from the counter. "Look for s'more on the run."

"It's an odd thought she had," Carol said. "Beth and Carl."

"Ain't crazy though. Be different when they's older. Hell, I ain't never been with a woman less'n four years older'n me."

Carol batted her eyelashes playfully. "And what do you know? I'm five years older than you."

She said it like a joke, so of course he took it like one: "Stop."

Five years had been a guess. Carol didn't know how old Daryl was. "Most men like younger women," she observed.

"Not when they's eighteen they don't."

"But when they're _your_ age."

He shrugged. "Young women's fine 'til they open their mouths and say somethin'."

Carol chuckled. "Please don't say that around Maggie."

"Maggie's a'ight. Less silly'n most." He wandered back to the living room and sat down in the armchair. He thanked her - which is to say he murmured something indecipherable - when she brought him the tea.

Carol settled on the couch, sipped her tea, and then tried to guess his middle name. "Basil."

"Ain't named after an 'erb, no."

"Blake."

"No."

"Byron. Like the poet."

Daryl shook his head and slurped his tea.

"Bertrand. Like Bertrand Russell."

"Who's that?"

"I don't actually know," Carol admitted. "But he's someone famous. Someone intellectual."

Daryl snorted.

"Well I just can't remember. He was a thinker or something. Banjo."

" _Banjo_? C'mon! Might as well of guessed Jaw Harp."

"Except Jaw Harp doesn't begin with a B," she reasoned. "Give me a hint. Just one little hint. How many syllables is it?"

His fingers tapped against the arm chair - once, twice, three times. "Three."

"Three?" she repeated. She couldn't think of a single name that started with B that had three syllables. "Is it usually a last name?"

"Nah."

"Bartholomew?"

"That's four syllables, genius." He smirked a little.

"Don't smirk." She smacked his knee playfully. It jumped, like she'd hit it with one of those hammers doctors used to test reflexes. He almost spilled his tea. "Sorry," she said. "Benjamin?"

"Nah. That ain't a bad name anyhow. "

"Balthazar?"

"Balthazar? Where the hell ya get these names?"

"Wasn't he one of the wise men?" Carol asked. Daryl shrugged. She sipped the last of her tea and set her empty cup on the end table. "Is your middle name a place name?"

"Nope."

"Well, I'm going to have to think on it as I fall asleep." Carol stood and yawned. "I'm headed to bed."

She paused with her fingertips on the arm of Daryl's chair. She thought once again of inviting him into her bed, but half the time when he fell asleep on the couch, he ended up on the floor anyway. He'd told her he actually _preferred_ the floor. Everything else felt too soft. So if she invited him to bed, she wouldn't be doing it for his comfort. She'd be doing it because she _wanted_ him there, and he would know that. What if he said no?

Worse yet, what if he said _yes,_ they ended up having sex, and she disappointed him? Ed had always called her "frigid." She didn't think she was. She just hadn't wanted Ed most of the time. But she wasn't bold either, and she wasn't likely to become so anytime soon, not in bed, anyway. She'd certainly gained a lot of confidence when it came to killing walkers and target shooting and offering her opinions when the group was planning. But sex was another matter entirely. Carol didn't know exactly what Daryl was used to, but she knew it wasn't quiet, inexperienced, unaggressive women.

So instead of asking him to bed, she rallied what courage she could and bent down and kissed his cheek, softly. He tasted like salt. His fingers curled tightly against the arm of the chair. He gripped it like he was holding onto the lap bar of a roller coaster. "Goodnight, Daryl," she whispered as she pulled away.

His voice was a little hoarse. "Nite, Carol."

 _Carol._ As she went to bed, alone, she wondered how the simple sound of her name on his lips could make her shiver.


	42. Shocks and Surprises

Sophia was still snoozing away when Carol poured the boiling water into the French press and set the timer for the coffee. She spied Daryl through the kitchen window, out on the porch, smoking. She'd caught him smoking in the cabin once, told him it wasn't healthy for Sophia, and asked him to please only smoke outside. She'd expected a fight, some grumbling at the minimum, but he'd only said, "Yes'm." She supposed if Lori or Andrea had asked him that, he would have blown smoke straight in their faces. It meant something, that "Yes'm." It was either a sign of respect for Carol or affection for Sophia, or maybe both.

Carol threw on a sweater over her blouse and slipped out the kitchen door. "Can I have a few puffs?" she asked.

He turned and eyed her curiously. "Ya don't smoke."

"Yeah, but I'm nervous about you men going to the village. Thought it might relax me a bit."

He handed her his cigarette and she sucked in and coughed. He chuckled. She handed it back. "But don't I look cool doing it?" she teased.

"Ain't no reason to ruin yer smile."

Was that a compliment? From Daryl Dixon? Was he saying she had a pretty smile? He was already turned away from her, leaned over the porch rail, dragging on his cigarette with a hiss. He blew out smoke and then stubbed out the last of the cigarette against the porch rail before flicking it between two fingers down the hill.

"I wouldn't think an outdoorsman like you would litter."

"Ain't no boy scout. 'Sides, it degrades." He turned now and faced her, his arms stretched out on either side and his hands behind himself on the rail. "Ain't nothin' to worry 'bout in that village. Merle and me drove through it. Didn't stop, but only saw a dozen walkers or so on the street."

"On the street. And how many more in the shops? And what if you encounter someone like Negan?"

"Ain't no one else like Negan. Man was a moonbat. Ya made us those sleeves. Be fine."

"The sleeves aren't a magic force field," Carol said.

"Help us clear the shops. Be fine. Ain't Atlanta."

She sighed and hugged herself. Inside the cabin, the digital watch beeped to tell her it was time to push down the top of the French press. She began to turn to go in when she noticed the plastic mistletoe hanging from the porch awning above. She chuckled. "I guess whoever stayed here forgot to take down all their Christmas decorations. Might as well leave it up now. Only a month away."

When she turned back to Daryl, he was leaning in. His blue eyes were almost level with hers. They'd never been so close. At this distance, she felt as if she could fall into them and drown, and the air went out of her. His mouth came down on hers, hard and fast. His bottom lip was rough from chewing, while his upper lip was astonishingly soft, and his breath was smoky and warm. When the heat of his mouth dragged across hers, she gasped, partly from surprise, and partly from an unexpected jolt of desire.

Almost as soon as his lips were on hers, they were gone.

Daryl stepped back and bit his bottom lip hard. "Sorry," he muttered through his teeth. "Had to."

" _Had_ to?" she asked, the feel of his lips still lingering on hers.

His bottom lip slid out from beneath his teeth. A little blood cut a sharp line down the middle. "Ya know. 'Cause of the legend."

"What legend?"

"If'n ya get caught under the mistletoe, and ya don't kiss, Christmas ghosts'll burn down your cabin."

"What?"

"Ya ain't never heard that?" he asked.

"Daryl, _no one_ has ever heard that."

His eyes narrowed. "Ain't a real legend?"

"There's a _tradition_ of kissing beneath the mistletoe. But there are no Christmas ghosts who burn down your cabin if you don't."

Daryl's eyes began to simmer and narrow. "So that's just some shit Merle made up."

"And you _believed_ it?"

He clenched his teeth and breathed in through his nose. "Didn't kiss this one girl in school when she held that damn thing up over me." He jutted his chin out and up at the mistletoe. "Four months later, cabin burned down. Killed my mama."

"Did you _blame_ yourself for that?"

"Knew my mama did it. Drunk and smokin'. But...felt like...my bad luck. Didn't tell no one 'bout that girl I didn't kiss. Sure as hell didn't tell Merle."

Carol wrapped her arms around him, at his waist, because she'd figured out he didn't like his back to be touched. She lay her head on his chest and hugged him. She felt him stiffen and then relax beneath her touch. "It wasn't anything you did or didn't do," she assured him.

His arms surrounded her, strong and warm. She felt like she could stay here for an hour, just resting in the strength of his embrace, but in less than a minute, his arms fell to his sides. "Watch still beepin'. Coffee's gonna be strong."

She pulled slowly away. "Have some before you leave?"

He nodded, his eyes everywhere but on her. "Mhmhm."

[*]

They took the largest of the pick-ups, the one with the roomy, extended cab and the immense bed. Before the men got in, Carol handed them their individually tailored, protective sleeves. They lay them on the back seat. Rick kissed Lori goodbye, and T-Dog kissed Darlene. Daryl studied Carol's feet while she told him, "Take care."

Rick rode shotgun and Daryl drove. In the backseat, T-Dog took off his checkered, button-down shirt and slid on his protective sleeves one by one. Then he put the shirt back on loosely over it. The curved brass on the outside of the leather pushed against the fabric of his shirt's sleeves, creating a bubbled appearance.

"We don't need those just yet," Rick said.

"I just want to get used to how they feel."

Rick fiddled with the radio's tuning knob, shifting from static to static until he settled on that one station that was _still_ playing "Ladies Love Country Boys" on an endless loop. That song had been playing on that station ever since the first week of the collapse. When would whatever back-up power source that was playing it run out?

Rick began to sing along in an exaggerated accent that made Daryl feel like he was poking fun at him:

 _Yeah, you know mamas and daddies want better for their daughters_  
 _Hope they'll settle down with a doctor or a lawyer_  
 _In their uptown, ball gown, hand-me-down royalty_

Completely out of sync with the music, Rick drummed on the dashboard on the passenger's side and kept singing:

 _They never understand_  
 _Why their princess falls_  
 _For some camouflage britches_  
 _And a southern boy drawl_

 _Or why she's ridin' in the middle of a pickup truck_  
 _Blarin' Hank Jr., yellin', -_

From the back seat, T-Dog sang - "Turn it up!"

Daryl reached out and violently flicked the volume off.

"Is it true?" Rick asked with a smirk. " _Do_ ladies love country boys?"

"Ever seen me with a _lady_?" Daryl spat.

"Carol," Rick said.

"Ain't exactly _with_ 'er," Daryl muttered. He'd sure made a mess of that kiss. He'd wanted to kiss her for a long time, but he hadn't dared try, and then that damn mistletoe...He wasn't used to kissing women unless he was also screwing them, and even then he was usually nipping at their necks or shoulders from behind more than he was _kissing._ He knew about as much about kissing as he knew about nuclear physics. He'd done a terrible job of it. Carol wasn't ready for it, and he didn't think she'd liked it, but at least she hadn't slapped him. Hell, she'd _hugged_ him.

"Ain't exactly _not_ with her either," T-Dog observed.

Daryl didn't contradict him, because that about summed it up. He wasn't exactly with Carol, but he wasn't exactly _not_ with her either. Maybe it was friendship she felt for him. He didn't know. He wasn't quite sure what friendship was. "And Carol ain't exactly uptown royalty," Daryl muttered. "Grew up small town. Ain't nothin' snobbish 'bout 'er."

"Well, I don't know if ladies love country boys," T-Dog said, "but I do know country girls love a refined, black gentleman." He pointed to himself with two thumbs.

Rick chuckled. He turned the radio back on and began singing:

 _You can train 'em_  
 _You can try to teach 'em right from wrong_  
 _But it's still gonna turn 'em on_  
 _When they go ridin' in the middle of a pickup truck_  
 _Blarin' Lynyrd Skynyrd, yellin'-_

"Turn it up!" T-Dog yelled along from the back seat.

Daryl sighed heavily.

 _You can raise her up a lady,_ T-Dog and Rick both sang loudly together, _But there's one thing you just can't avoid…Ladies love –_

The radio crackled and the music died suddenly. It crackled again and there was the sound of a female voice drifting through.

"What the hell?" T-Dog asked.

Rick fine-tuned the radio until the voice came in more clearly, but echoing as if in a warehouse: "Terminus. Sanctuary for all, community for all. Those who arrive, survive."

The recording went on to give coordinates. Rick yanked a Georgia map out of the glove compartment. It rustled as he unfolded it, and a corner brushed Daryl on the nose. Daryl swatted the map away.

"That's near Macon," Rick said.

"Terminus," the voice repeated. "Food, electricity, running water, medical services. Terminus. Sanctuary for all, community for all. Those who arrive, survive." Then the radio crackled, and "Ladies Love Country Boys" came back on. Rick switched it off. "There's a _real_ community near Macon."

"Or was," Daryl said. "Like them refugee camps in Atlanta."

"They're _broadcasting._ "

"So's that damn song. Don't mean no one's actually playin' it."

"Might be worth checking out," T-Dog said from the backseat.

"Got everythin' we need in them cabins," Daryl insisted.

"We're down to only a week's worth of canned food!" Rick countered.

"Get more on this run. Got that garden. Plenty of game in them woods. Fish in the stream."

"Come on, Daryl," Rick said. "The have _electricity._ Lori's _pregnant_. What if there's a hospital in this place?"

"We got medicines, generators, gas, fireplaces, wood stoves, runin' water. Don't make no damn sense to uproot now when we got safe shelter for the winter."

"But this might be an entire community," Rick said with excitement. "We might be talking a _real_ doctor for Lori, more friends for Carl and Sophia, boyfriends for Beth and Andrea."

Maybe a boyfriend for Carol, too. Why did she seem to like spending her evenings with Daryl anyway? Probably because every other man in their camp already had a woman. Daryl was all that was left. "Might be burned up. Overrun. Less secure 'n what we got. Don't know how long that's been playin'."

"I think we have to at least check it out," T-Dog said.

"Why?" Daryl barked. "Bird in hand's worth two in the bush."

"Macon's less than a three hour drive," T- Dog reasoned.

"Through road blockages and walkers and fuck knows what kind of rovin' gangs!" Daryl was getting angry now. He just wanted to do this job and get _home._ To that little cabin. To Carol and Sophia. To his girls, who might not choose to be with him in a larger world. "Get this shit from the village and get home. People's expectin' us back."

"Fine," Rick said. "But then we're going to run it by the group, see who wants to scout Terminus out."

[*]

Carol took her daily shift on the watchtower at ten in the morning. As she scanned the half-bare trees with her binoculars, she saw a walker stumble out of the woods and set foot on the dirt roadway, the first one they'd seen in weeks.

The binoculars fell back against her chest. Leveling her AR-15, she sighted in the creature's head through the scope and squeezed the trigger. The walker fell instantly, and she felt a warm glow of pride ease through her.

The front door of the big cabin banged open. Glenn came running toward the tree house, shouting her name. Assuming he was worried about the gunshot, Carol called back, "It's okay! I just shot a walker! That's all it was!"

But Glenn kept running. He scaled the ladder of the tree house quickly and said, "I'll take over watch. Darlene needs you."

"Why?" Carol asked anxiously.

He took the rifle from her hand. "Just go!"

[*]

The sign entering the town read _Sleepy Dale_ \- _Population 1,023_. Daryl parked at one end of Main Street and switched off the purring engine.

"Not exactly a bustling metropolis," Rick observed as he pulled on his protective sleeves. "Let's hope they have something worth taking."

The town was oddly deserted, and very little shattered glass littered the sidewalks. Most of the shops appeared to be closed and untouched, and only a few scraps of trash were blown by the November wind through the streets. A handful of walkers lumbered out of a nearby green space and toward the pick-up when the men climbed out. One fell down the steps of a gazebo before dragging itself up.

Daryl picked off the closest two walkers with his crossbow while T-Dog slung a rifle on his shoulder and plucked an axe out of the truck's bed. Rick unsheathed his knife. As the two men marched forward to hack and stab, Daryl shed his leather jacket and tossed it in the truck to pull on his sleeves. They fit like a glove, though they felt strange. He wasn't used to anything so tight against his skin. He thought of taking them off and tossing them back in the truck, but he didn't want to tell Carol he hadn't used them. So Daryl left them on as he went to recover his spent arrows.

While he was crouching down on the sidewalk to pull one out, he realized he hadn't quite hit the brain. The stunned creature had fallen, but it wasn't dead. The thing turned its head and gnashed at his arm, but growled and pulled back for a moment when its teeth scraped the sharp, jagged brass that coated the leather. Daryl yanked the arrow out and thrust it fiercely into its forehead, angry at himself for allowing its teeth so close to his arm. But at least he could tell Carol her sleeves worked.

Once the street was clear of any nearby walkers, they crossed back and began to check the shop windows one by one. They skipped the first store – a locked shipping supply place advertising computer and Internet access. The next store, which sold used records and CDs, had been busted in. Daryl swept the aisles and found one walker between the E - Js and the K - Ps, face-down, shot in the back of the head. He looked cautiously around for signs that someone had been here recently, but he couldn't tell how long it had been. A day, at least. He rolled the walker over. Its blue and gold University of North Georgia sweatshirt looked too clean. This one had turned and been shot recently. "Might be someone in this town. Be on guard."

"I always am," Rick said as he shoveled batteries and a portable CD player into his backpack. "Strange they only took half the batteries."

T-Dog grabbed a a handful of Buddy Guy and Muddy Waters CDs, and out they went. They moved on to the kitchy local gift shop, which probably sold junk to the out-of-state city people who came to hike or camp in the mountains or vacation in the cabins.

Rick tried the wooden door and found it locked. T-Dog swung his axe at the display window twice before the glass imploded and rained down onto the sidewalk and inside the shop. A distant walker that was loitering farther down Main Street looked up at the sound and staggered forward. No one bothered with it yet.

The men climbed one by one through the window. T-Dog shattered a glass case and brushed the shards away with his arm. "These sleeves are good for clearing glass, too." He plucked up some jewelry.

"Waste of damn time," Daryl muttered, but then spied a gold necklace with a sparkly dolphin pendant. He reached in and snatched it quickly and tried to slide it into his pants pocket before T-Dog saw him.

T-Dog grinned. "Who's the lucky lady?"

"Sophia loves dolphins." The girl had only mentioned the fact a dozen times.

"You should get something for Carol, too."

"Carol don't like jewelry. Ain't never seen her wear none."

"She wears earrings," T-Dog told him as though he were speaking to a child.

Daryl tried to picture Carol with earrings. He couldn't see it.

T-Dog picked up a pair of sparkly studs. "This kind." He snapped the box shut and handed it to Daryl. "Never say I didn't help a brother out."

Daryl was skeptical about the earrings, but he knew for a fact Carol liked tea. So when he spied a country-style corner hutch stocked with "local raw honey," shortbread cookies, and assorted boxes of herbal tea, he grabbed a black duffel bag embroidered with the white words _Georgia on my mind_ and began to fill it.

T-Dog leaned his axe against the counter and wandered between the two clothes racks in the center of the store. He pulled a shirt off of a rack and held it up across himself. Sparkly letters spelling out _Smokin' Hot Georgia Girl_ were emblazoned across the chest of the low-cut, hot pink tank top. "I'm getting this for Darlene. Think she'll like it?"

"Looks like it's for an eleven year old," Rick said with a wince.

T-Dog turned it toward himself and looked at the size. "That's sick." He balled it up and tossed it on top of the rack.

"Lori could probably use a maternity dress." Rick pulled something off the rack that was in the pattern of the Georgia state flag.

"Put that mumu back," T-Dog said. "She'll crucify you."

Rick returned it to the rack. "Who buys this crap?"

"While y'all girls is clothes shoppin', reckon I'll get the snacks." Daryl made his way to a bookcase with two shelves of treats. He shoveled Georgia peach candy, bags of glazed pecans, sugared pralines, nut rolls, and divinity into the duffel bag.

T-Dog walked by him, saying, cheerfully, "Santa Claus is coming to town!"

Other than the food, there wasn't much worth taking from the gift shop. They went out the front door. T-Dog axed the walker that had finally made its way to the scene, Daryl chucked the duffel bag in the bed of the pick-up, and the men continued to make their way down Main Street.

[*]

When Carol got to the big cabin, Darlene was waiting for her on the porch.

"What's going on?" Carol asked nervously.

"It's Lori. I need you to assist." Darlene lead Carol through the empty cabin toward Lori's bedroom.

"Where is everyone?"

"Andrea and Beth are fishing. I sent Maggie to take the kids to that cabin with the ping pong table to play so Carl wouldn't have to see this."

Lori was laying on a bed with her eyes closed. A fine sweat beaded her brow. Her chest rose and fell rhythmically. Her shirt had been pulled up to her breasts to reveal the taut bump of her pregnant belly, which appeared to have been rubbed down with alcohol. On the top of the low dresser was the medical bag Darlene had taken from the nursing home, a bottle of rubbing alcohol, and some surgical tools laid out on a clean, white towel.

Carol's eyes turned from the dresser back to Lori, and that was when she saw the woman's stomach move. It began with the slow, almost imperceptible roll that was not uncommon in pregnancy when a baby turns or kicks, though one usually didn't _see_ it this early. But then Lori's stomach began to move with quicker, frantic movements, rolling in every direction, the skin practically rippling like a tidal pool.

Carol gasped, took a step back, and hit the tall dresser. The metal handles rattled.

"Far as I can tell," Darlene said, "She got into my medical bag. Took some drugs to try to induce a miscarriage." They'd built their own stash of prescription drugs by cleaning out all of the medicine cabinets in the cabins, not to mention the small handful of drugs G had let them take from the nursing home. "I think she killed the baby, but it didn't miscarry. I think it turned in there. Think it's tryin' to get out."

"My God," Carol muttered.

"Can't be much bigger than an avocado at this point. Ain't got no teeth. But it's damn well thrashing. And I've got to get in there and get it out, or it'll kill her one way or the other - by causing an infection or through…whatever the hell it's doing in there."

Carol took in a shaky breath. "And you need me to assist the surgery?"

Darlene nodded. "Gave her an ambien to knock her out. Figure I'll cut along her old C-section scars. Need you to hand me things. Hold her down if she wakes up and tries to move. Be ready…" Darlene swallowed. "Be ready to kill it when we get her open."

Carol's hands began to tremble, but she willed them to steady themselves. "I'll go wash up."


	43. A Gain and a Loss

When the door to the next shop was also locked, they skipped it, because it was only a used bookstore. They passed over the paint-your-own-pottery place, too. "Corner Market," T-Dog read on the window of the next shop. "Looks more like a convenience store."

"And it's not on the corner," Rick added. "But there's still food."

The glass door had already been shattered and unlocked. Daryl opened it and coughed as a pungent scent slammed his nostrils. His eyes shot from corner mirror to corner mirror, but there was no sign of walkers. He cleared the aisles quickly. Nothing.

In the refrigerator case, the milk had curdled and turned a putrid whitish-brown while the frozen pizzas curved inward and were drooping down. The store had been completely cleared of _all_ of the beer and wine and about two-thirds of the soda and water, but most of the juice remained. Daryl found a large, empty cardboard box and went to work packing up the drinks. When he returned from putting the box in the bed of the truck, he passed Rick, who was boxing up diapers, formula, maxi pads, and tampons, and then T-Dog, who was completely clearing the shelf of condoms, spermicides, and personal lubricants. Daryl said nothing and went to the next aisle where he packed up the medicines and all of the foot and hand warmers. He'd need those for hunting in the winter.

Most of the food that was ready to eat straight out of the box or can was gone, but they scored dry oatmeal, grits, rice, and pasta, and there was one largely untouched shelf of canned vegetables.

"Okra, Brussel sprouts, asparagus, artichoke, and beets." T-Dog shook his head. "All the worst ones."

"Love okra," Daryl said as he packed up. "And there's jalapenos and collards."

"I'll get the condiments. Maybe the kids will eat them if they're doused in ranch dressing."

They took everything to the bed of the pick-up and then moved on to the visitor's center next door. The glass door had been broken, probably to reach the lock, but then it had been boarded up again. Rick pulled on the door handle cautiously, and when it creaked open, he let it fall back. He nodded silently to Daryl and T-Dog. Daryl readied his crossbow while T-Dog leaned his axe against the brick wall and unshouldered his rifle.

When Rick jerked the door open, Daryl leaped inside and scanned for walkers or men. The room reeked of beer. He found four sleeping bags on the floor. Clothes and other belongings were heaped in messy piles. Empty beer cans, bottles, and wine boxes littered the countertop behind which were racks of maps and flyers for local campsites, trails, boat rentals, and adventure tours.

"Someone's living here," T-Dog said.

"No shit," Daryl muttered. They appeared to be using a sturdy bookcase full of coupon books to block the door at night. It had been pulled haphazardly to the side.

"They must have been living off the food in the convenience store for a while," Rick said.

Daryl looked behind the counter, prowled around the sleeping bags, and then pushed the clothes about with his boot to discover several University of North Georgia sweatshirts and t-shirts. Some had Greek letters on them. "Fuckin' frat boys." He kicked over another pile of clothes and found a UNG Rifle Team t-shirt. So at least one of them could shoot.

The door swung open. All three men swiveled and aimed.

[*]

Carol moved as if through the fog of a half-remembered nightmare. There was so much blood. There wasn't a turned fetus inside Lori, after all. There were _two_. They didn't have a heart rate Doppler, and the baby wasn't far enough along to be easily heard by stethoscope, so neither of them had been expecting what they found inside, though it explained the strength of the movements. Carol was weeping when she stuck the small surgical knife into each of their tiny heads.

After that, it was a blur. Darlene yelling for towels and water. Carol handing her things and then not remembering what she'd handed her. Lori waking up screaming and Carol pinning her down while Darlene struggled to stem the bleeding and sew her up.

And then Lori suddenly stopped her struggle, gasped once for air, and her eyes turned glassy cold.

Darlene pulled the sheet up over Lori's stilled body to her neck. Darlene's voice reached Carol as if it was drifting from the top of a deep well. "Get Carl. Let him say goodbye to his mother 'fore she turns."

[*]

"Oh shit!" cried the sandy-brown haired college kid who had just walked through the door. He immediately raised his rifle and moved it left and right as if not sure who to train it on. He settled on Daryl.

"Lower your rifle," Rick said. "We don't mean you any harm."

A thin line of fine, light brown hair crawled above the young man's top lip. "No way. You guys lower yours first."

 _You guys._ Someone was a long way from home.

"That's not going to happen," Rick said. "We'll lower ours when you lower yours."

"You better lower yours," College Boy said. "I'm an expert marksman. Number one on the UNG rifle team."

"Son, I don't care if you're on Jesus Christ's rifle team," Rick told him. "You aren't going to be able to shoot all three of us before we shoot you."

"There's more of us," the kid warned with a shaky voice. "They're just outside. All armed too. You better lower your weapons first."

College Boy was lying. There was no one outside. Daryl already knew that at least one of those college kids was face down in the record shop.

"We want peace." Rick glanced from T-Dog to Daryl. Then he made a show of lowering his handgun, not to the floor, but to his side. Daryl slung his crossbow on his back. T-Dog also lowered his rifle.

When the college kid saw this, he settled his rifle upright against his shoulder. "I'm Zach," he said.

"Well, Zach," Rick holstered his handgun. "Call in the other three. Let's talk."

"I lied. They're dead. A couple nights ago, we were down to the last of the beer and wine, and they wanted to party. I must have been asleep when they decided to go outside. God knows why they did it. Too drunk to think, I guess. I found them all the next day. Slackjawed and lame brained." His head drooped and he rubbed his eyes. "I had to kill them all."

"Where were you just now?" Rick asked.

"Went to one of the construction porta potties at the end of Main Street. It's where we...you know...take our dumps."

"Where are you from?" Rick asked.

"Iowa, but I was going to UNG when it started."

Rick continued his interrogation. "How long have y'all been living here?"

"About two and a half months," Zach answered. "A few of us fled our frat house together in a pick-up when it started. Plowed through those things all the way across campus. We were just…you know…surviving. Went from place to place. There weren't a lot of slackjaws when we got here. We figured…it's in the middle of nowhere. It'll be safe from looters and gangs." He eyed the three men cautiously.

"We're not a gang," Rick reassured them. "We're just trying to survive, just like you."

"Can I maybe survive with you?" Zach asked. "It's just me now. There's some food left in that convenience store we can take, if you've got a camp somewhere."

"Ain't gonna be a party with us," Daryl warned him.

"We ration our food," Rick said in his serious cop voice. "We have communal meals in the evening. And we say grace."

College Boy blinked. "Are you...like...a religious cult?"

"No," T-Dog said. "We just say grace."

"We work," Rick emphasized. " _All_ of us."

"I can work hard," Zach assured him. "I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth, whatever you might be assuming."

Daryl glanced at the countertops. "Dunno. Looks like ya think yer still livin' in a frat house."

"What else was there to do?" Zach asked. "Four guys at the end of the world. It gets depressing. But I've seen my friends turn…." He swallowed and shook his head. "I don't want that. I want to live."

"You join us, you _earn_ your place," Rick warned him.

"I'll earn it," Zach promised. "Do you have a camp that's better than this?"

T-Dog chuckled. "Yeah. It's a _lot_ better than this."

"Pack up your things," Rick told him. "We'll put them in our truck, and then you'll help us clear the rest of the shops before we go back."

"If you hit the convenience store already, there's really nothing else worth taking in this town," Zach said.

"We'll be the judges of that," Rick assured him. "Pack up."

[*]

Carl wept over his mother's dead body, his small frame heaving as he lay himself across her chest. Carol ushered him out when the woman began to turn, shutting the door on Darlene, who took over from there.

Later, Beth and Sophia sat with Carl on the living room couch, each with an arm around his shoulders. In the kitchen, Glenn, Andrea, Maggie, Carol, and Darlene hovered head to head.

"Should we bury her now, or wait for Rick to come back?" Glenn asked.

"Rick should be able to bury her," Carol said. "We need to give him that."

"That's not her," Andrea argued. "He doesn't need to _see_ her like that."

"Can you make a coffin?" Maggie asked Glenn. "I mean, if you built houses for Habitat - "

"- I can probably manage something rough," Glenn said.

"Put it in the coffin, get it out the house," Darlene said. "Let Rick decide when he gets back if he wants to look or not. And let Rick bury it."

Glenn nodded. "I'll get to work." He headed out.

"No one's on watch," Andrea said. "I'll go." She trailed after Glenn.

Maggie leaned back against the countertop. "I am _never_ having sex with Glenn again. If there's an accidental pregnancy, and then the fetus dies without miscarrying…" She shook her head. "I guess I thought babies would be immune."

"Well I ain't giving up sex for nothing," Darlene said. "But I sure as hell ain't gonna trust T-Dog just to pull out no more. Condoms _and_ spermicide from now on."

"Do you _have_ that?" Maggie asked.

"Out of both, but T-'s supposed to bring back more." Darlene shook her head. "Shit. Why do women always get the raw end of life?"

"I guess it's not normally going to be a problem," Carol said. "Normally a woman would just miscarry right away. But Lori didn't because of the way she - "

"- We don't need to tell Rick 'bout that," Darlene interrupted.

"About what?" Maggie asked. "She tried to abort it?"

"Keep that to yourself," Darlene insisted.

"What the hell was she thinking?" Carol blurted. Images of those undead fetuses flashed through her mind. Rick would have raised those babies as his own.

"Guess she felt guilty and trapped," Darlene answered. "It's a screwed-up world. I sure ain't one to judge. But she should of talked to Rick. She should of done it a safer way, if she was gonna do it." Darlene turned and looked over at the living room, where Carl was crying again, against Andrea's breast, with Beth and Sophia's hands on his back. "That poor boy."

[*]

"And ya said there weren't nothin' else worth takin' on this street?" Daryl asked. "Damn!"

"Well, I don't smoke," Zach told him.

"You don't need to smoke to know you could use matches and butane and lighters," T-Dog said before he busted in the glass of the cigar shop with his axe.

Zach raised his rifle and shot through the broken glass at the walker that was ambling around inside.

"Gunshots draw them," Rick said with barely veiled disdain. "We like to use knives and arrows and axes." He nodded down the street to where two walkers were now lurching out of an alleyway toward them.

"You think that was because of my gunshot and not because of all the shattering glass?" Zach asked. "You know, you might have tried the door." He walked over a few steps and pulled it open.

"Oh." T-Dog said.

"Dumb ass," Daryl muttered.

"I thought _you_ tried it," T-Dog told him.

"Ya _see_ me try it?"

T-Dog shrugged. "I'll stay out here and kill those two when they get here."

Daryl shook his head as he went inside. He didn't know the difference between a $2 cigar and $20 one. He just knew that he was almost out of cigarettes and so cigars would have to do. He grabbed all of the boxes of the small, slender ones, because they _looked_ more like a cigarette. Rick, on the other hand, took his time shopping for the expensive stuff. "Aww, yeah," he said, "Arturo Fuente. These are over $50 _each_."

"For a smoke?" Daryl asked. "Who the fuck has that kind of money?"

"Now? We _all_ do." Rick grinned as he closed up two boxes and stacked them on top of each other. "We'll save these for when my boy is born."

"Might could be a girl," Daryl said.

"We'll smoke them for a girl, too. But everyone in my family had boys." Rick was talking like the baby was actually his, even though he had to know it wasn't. "My mom had three boys, and my brothers each had two."

"Ya had two brothers?" Daryl had never heard Rick mention either one.

Rick nodded. "We weren't that close. One lived in California. The other was in New York. I was the loser of the family. Never went to college. Never left Georgia."

"Think they's still alive?"

"Doubt it. They both married women who wouldn't allow guns in the house. The one in California even developed a glutten allergy."

"Hell's glutten?"

"I don't know, but I know if you can't stomach that, you probably can't stomach an apocalypse."

Daryl thought it was odd that Rick could joke at his brothers' likely deaths, but maybe that's what he had to do to put the thought behind himself.

Outside, they could hear the sound of T-Dog's axe squishing into dead flesh.

"We better get a couple of humidors while we're at it," Rick said.

Later, when they got to a shop called Grills N' Things, Daryl informed Zach that he was "so dumb he couldn't pour piss out a boot with the instructions written on the heel."

"Why would piss be in a boot?" Zach asked. "And I didn't know you _wanted_ a grill. Don't you already have grills at the cabins?"

"Ain't the grills, moron. 'S the propane. Charcoal. Fire starters."

"And the sauces and dry rubs," T-Dog added.

Daryl nodded. Carol would love those. The store also had a snack stand right by the register, with beef jerky, sunflower seeds, candy bars, and trail mix.

"Do you have a running pick-up?" Rick asked Zach as they set the propane tanks down on the curb by their truck. "We have too much loot to haul in ours."

Zach shook his head. "Engine caught on fire ten miles back. We hiked here. But I know where there's a trailer we can attach to your truck."

"Even better. Then we won't have to split up."

"Ain't no gun store on this strip?" Daryl asked Zach as they walked on.

"No."

There was, however, a Bait and Tackle shop. They had plenty of fishing gear back at the cabins already, but the store also had a shelf of ammunition.

"Are these for redneck fishing?" T-Dog asked with a smirk as he shoveled them into a cardboard box he'd emptied of life jackets.

Daryl gave him a cool stare.

T-Dog grinned. "Not quite the rise I was looking for. Someone's taming you." He nodded to Zach. "Where'd you get your ammo?"

"I already had a lot before the Outbreak, for rifle team practice. I just brought it with me. I'm down to a hundred rounds, though." He giggled his backpack, and they could hear it rattling around in there.

T-Dog picked up two ten gallon gas cans from the boat accessory section.

"Those are just empty," Zach said.

"I know, Einstein," T-Dog told him. "We're going to siphon off gas from the abandoned cars before we go. I saw five."

Daryl shook his head at Zach. "How 'n the hell ya make it this long, kid?"

[*]

Carl wouldn't eat dinner. He lay on the couch watching Spiderman on the portable DVD player, his head in Andrea's lap, until he fell asleep.

"I wish I could make him feel better," Sophia told Carol as she helped to wash dishes.

"I know, sweetie. I do, too. But only time will make him feel better."

[*]

The creamy center of the Three Musketeers bar hit Daryl's tongue like a five-star meal. "Mhmmmm. Mhmmmm."

"You having an orgasm up there?" Zach asked.

Daryl ripped his boots off the dash, turned, and seared Zach with his gaze.

Zach held up two hands. "Sorry."

Daryl sat forward again.

"Your friend irritates easy," Zach told T-Dog. Two cardboard boxes were crammed on the back seat between them, and the bed of the pick-up and the attached 7 X 16 cargo trailer were stuffed to the gills.

"That's true," T-Dog said, "but it doesn't help that you're irritating."

Rick maneuvered slowly around a road blockage by dipping in and out of the shoulder for a while. He had to gun it to pull the trailer back up the slight hill again.

"Don't flood the damn engine."

"Thank you, Daryl, but I think I know how to drive. I've been doing it since I was sixteen."

"'Been doin' it since I's _twelve_."

"Are there any women in this camp?" Zach asked.

"Ya so much as look at Beth funny," Daryl told him, "And I'll cut off yer balls."

Zach instinctively pinched his legs together. "Who's Beth?"

"How old are you?" Rick asked.

"Nineteen."

Rick glanced at Daryl and shrugged.

"No," Daryl said.

"Bound to happen sooner or later," Rick told him.

"Who's Beth?" Zach asked again.

[*]

Carol was on watch when the pick-up rumbled up the mountainside and came to a stop before the line of vehicles they'd used to block off the road. Her heart sung with relief when Daryl jumped out of the front passenger's side and then sunk with dread when Rick slipped out of the driver's seat.

When the young man got out, her eyes widened.

By now, everyone had spilled out of the big cabin and was walking solemnly toward the arriving men.

[*]

"Damn." Zach's eyes drifted from Darlene to Beth to Maggie to Andrea as the women made their way down the dirt road. "It's like the Playboy Mansion up on this mountain."

Before Daryl could snap at him, Carl tore forward and threw himself into his father's gut in a weeping, tackle hug.

Rick's arms surrounded his son. "What is it? Carl, what's wrong?"

"Mom's dead!"

"No," Rick said calmly, as though soothing a child who was waking from a nightmare.

"She is! She's dead! She died! The babies died and she died and she's dead!"

"Babies?" Rick asked.

Darlene put a hand on Rick's shoulder. "I'm so sorry. They didn't miscarry, and they turned, and I tried to get them out to save her. But the blood loss and the shock…I'm so sorry."

"No," Rick said again. "No. No! No!" He broke free of Carl's grip and ran toward the cabin, screaming Lori's name.


	44. Daryl's Middle Name

Rick was a mess. Daryl had to dig the grave. Zach volunteered to help. To the kid's credit, he threw his back into the work and didn't say a damn word the whole time. By the time the coffin was lowered down and they all stood around the grave, Rick had accepted that Lori really was dead.

The sun sank behind the half bare tops of trees as the first shovel of dirt clopped onto the irregular, light brown box Glenn had assembled from the plywood and two by fours he'd found in a workshop. Rick struck the sharp point of the shovel into the earth like a man thrusting a knife into a walker's brain and leaned on the wooden handle. He glared over the still open grave at Darlene. "You never should have tried to cut her open."

"She would have died."

"She did die!" Rick yelled across the grave at her.

"Dad," Carl said nervously from beside him, "Calm down."

Carol walked around Carl to put a hand on Rick's back. "We couldn't just leave those things inside her. She would have died of natural infection if nothing else. Darlene did everything she could, Rick. I know. I was there."

Rick jerked away from her touch. He whirled, got right up in her face, and roared, "Then you should have stopped her!"

Daryl stormed around the edge of the grave and inserted himself between Carol and Rick, his muscles taut with defensive anger. He bumped chests with Rick until the man backed off.

"Daryl, it's all right," Carol said softly from behind him.

Daryl stepped back and eyed Rick warily.

"You can't blame them for this," Glenn said quietly. "They were trying to save her."

"I should have listened to her," Rick spat. "I should have listened to Lori! I should have let Darlene take my place on this run." Rick stormed off toward the woods.

"He needs his space," Andrea said.

Maggie shook her head. "He's not in any condition to be out there by himself."

Daryl swung his crossbow off his back and loaded an arrow. "I'll follow 'em. Keep my distance. Make sure he don't get hurt."

Glenn worked out the shovel Rick had rooted in the ground. The whisk of metal and the dull clattering of dirt on wood drifted after Daryl like a grim rhythm as he disappeared into the trees.

[*]

Moonlight weaved an erratic path over the decaying leaves. The snapping of twigs broke up the sound of Rick's low mutterings. Daryl had left enough space between them that he couldn't tell what Rick was saying to himself, or to Lori, or to God. The glint of the moon on metal blinded Daryl for a moment as Rick violently unsheathed his knife. What the hell was he doing? There was no trace of a walker.

Rick stabbed a tree. The bark peeled off when he pulled out his blade. He thrust it in and pulled it out again, over and over, more violently each time, sputtering and choking as he did so until, with the last thrust, his hand curled tightly around the handle that stuck out from the tree. He bent his head against the bark and wept.

Daryl crept cautiously forward. Something in the air changed. Daryl's ears caught the sound of an animal. He readied his bow, and when a pair of glowing eyes appeared at about the height of Rick's knees, his finger was already on the trigger. The coyote's growl was followed by a woosh, thunk, and howl. The canine let off a high whimper as it vanished through the woods, Daryl's arrow still in its hide.

Rick stumbled back from the tree. "Daryl?"

"'S me."

"What the hell was that?"

"Coyote. Missed it."

"Looks like you hit it to me."

A hit that didn't fall the animal and took one of his arrows was worse than a miss as far as he was concerned.

Rick worked his knife out of the bark. The tree dripped sap like a single slow tear. He sheathed the weapon and turned. "You followed me?"

"Mhmhm."

Rick ran an arm across his tear-streaked face. "Don't know what the hell's wrong with me."

"Yer wife died."

Rick snorted and nodded. Daryl didn't know what he found funny in his words. "Yeah," Rick said. "But that happens to a lot of people in this world, doesn't it?"

"But now it's happenin' to you." Daryl's eyes flitted around the forest. "C'mon. 'S head back. Carl needs his daddy." Daryl turned and walked forward. He listened for the sound of Rick's footsteps. They followed.

[*]

The tragic events of the day had exhausted Sophia. She fell asleep before Carol was on the second sentence of the new book she'd chosen.

Carol absently straightened up the kitchen, wondering when Daryl would be back from following Rick. Between the hurried events of the evening, unloading the truck and trailer, and burying Lori, there'd been no time to talk. Carol had barely made her introduction to the stray they'd brought home, but the young man seemed harmless enough.

Daryl had left a jar of raw honey on the countertop. After unscrewing the lid, she dipped in her finger and licked off a golden glob. The rush of sugar did nothing to soothe her. Carol didn't think they'd be chatting playfully over tea tonight. The images of those unborn, undead things would not leave her mind. She screwed the cap back on the jar, took two Benadryl, and went to bed early.

[*]

When Daryl and Rick got back to the big cabin, someone had changed the sheets and comforter in Lori and Rick's room. Rick didn't want to set foot in it. He offered it to Zach and claimed the second bed in Carl's room instead.

"Hey," Darlene whispered and nodded Daryl aside to a corner of the kitchen near the sink. "How's he holdin' up?"

"Not good," Daryl said. "Better keep an eye on 'em."

"We will. Listen, Carol might be… _stressed_. Just want you to be aware. It was pretty awful. She's the one had to kill them babies. That don't sit well with a woman."

"A'ight."

"She might need you tonight."

What the hell did that mean? "Need me…how?"

"However she needs you. Just be there. Don't run. Don't hide. Better yet, _go_ to her, even if she don't ask you to."

"Ain't gonna invade her space."

"She'll want you to." Darlene looked him up and down. "And change your damn clothes. Women like good hygiene even more than flowers."

[*]

Carol dreamed she was at a funeral for her first two babies, the ones that had miscarried, the ones she'd never mentioned to Ed. As she was laying flowers on the first grave, a tiny hand burst through the earth. Carol leaned forward to look at it and found the hand was covered in blood. From beneath the blood there moved six tiny mouths with sharp, little teeth.

Her own crying awoke her.

Through her uneven sobs, Carol could hear shuffling outside her door. She reached out and turned up the kerosene lamp. "Sophia?" she asked.

She'd left the door slightly ajar, and it now creaked open. Daryl stood with his index finger pointing outward. He'd pushed the door open with a single digit. His muscular figure filled the doorway, and he leaned a bare shoulder against the frame.

The flickering kerosene lamp revealed the glaring whiteness of his muscle T-shirt. He must have put on a new one, straight out of the package she'd left him on the end table in the living room three weeks ago, but which he'd never opened. He wasn't in the blood-and-oil-stained Wranglers he'd worn on the run either. He'd changed into a pair of lightly worn camouflage pants. They fit him fairly well at the waist, but the bottoms were rolled up twice. She'd never seen him look so _clean_.

Carol swiped at her face with the back of her hand and tried to calm her breathing, but she just ended up letting out a soft sob instead.

"If'n I tell ya my middle name," Daryl said, "will ya promise to stop cryin'?"

Carol laugh-choked. A hint of a smile broke out across her tear-stained face and lightened the darkness in her cloudy-wet eyes. "I promise I'll try," she answered.

[*]

Daryl's heart tightened in his chest. He took a few cautious steps inside the room. As she sat up against the headboard, he reached up and toyed with the lacy white fabric of the canopy. She was wearing a pale yellow tank top, and though he tried not to notice, he could see the faint outline of her nipples against the fabric. Goose bumps broke out across her arms now that they were outside the heavy comforter and exposed to the cooler air.

"Promise ya won't laugh?"

Carol pulled her legs up, tenting the comforter with her knees, and leaving space on the end of the bed. "I promise I'll try."

He sat down on the bed at her feet and put a hand down tentatively on the mattress. He made himself look at her face. The quivering flame of the kerosene lamp danced like a rainbow in the wet, shimmering pool of her light blue eyes. "It's Baby Boy," he said.

Carol snorted. Then she chortled and covered her mouth. "Sorry," she mumbled through her fingers.

"'S a'ight. Truth is, kind of wanted ya to laugh. Least ya ain't cryin' no more."

"Baby Boy?" she asked.

"Mhmh."

"Daryl… _Baby Boy_...Dixon."

"Stop."

"Okay, I'll stop, Baby Boy."

" _Stop._ "

"Why did they name you Baby Boy?"

"My mama couldn't decide what she wanted. She was gonna change it later. Never did. Never mattered 'til I got my driver's license. Had to say what the birth certificate said."

Carol wrapped her arms around her knees. "So your driver's license says Daryl Baby Boy Dixon?"

He nodded.

"Can I see it?"

Her eyes were smiling so much now that he almost wished he could let her. "Ain't like I kept it."

She shrugged. "I still have mine. It was a big deal to me. Ed never liked me driving, but I always felt like, if I kept that up to date, I could escape."

"Ain't got no one to escape no more."

"No," she said quietly. "There's no one here I want to escape."

Daryl looked away and worked at a hangnail with his teeth. His eyes moved from his thumb to her face and back.

"Now I get anything I want," she said, in that teasing tone that always confused him.

Daryl lowered his hand. "What?"

"You said if I learned your middle name, I could have anything I asked for."

"Said if ya _guessed_ it. Ya ain't guessed it."

"Okay then. Let me guess." She tapped a fingertip against her lips. "Is it Baby Boy? Did I guess right?"

Maybe it was best to let her win this bet. Darlene had said Carol might need him. It would be a hell of a lot easier if Carol just told him _what_ he needed to _do_. "Yeah. Reckon ya did. So whatcha want from me then?"

Now Carol was the one to look away. She studied the flame of the lamp. Daryl studied it, too. There was something soothing about a fire, especially a quiet one.

"I want you stay with me tonight. In this bed. All night."

Blood rushed in too many directions at once. Daryl had to reach out and wrap his hand around the post that held up the canopy.

In the past, whenever a woman would ask him to bed, he would assume that meant she wanted to be fucked. He didn't get many such offers, so he rarely said no. He'd always take her from behind. Face to face was too personal. He left his shirt on and just dropped his pants and boxers. The woman would put his hands places and he'd squeeze or pinch or finger like she ordered, and she'd grunt and grind right along with him. When he got close, he'd think of boring shit until she came, and then he'd let himself explode. Right after, he'd toss the condom, yank up his pants, and, soon enough, he'd find some excuse to leave.

But Carol wasn't like any woman who had ever invited him to bed before. He doubted she was asking to be fucked. But what _was_ she asking for? What the hell did she _want_? "With ya," he echoed, hoping she would clarify. "In this bed."

"All night," she said.

He'd _never_ spent the entire night in a woman's bed before. All night doing _what_? He wished she'd just _say_. But she didn't. "A'ight." He gripped the pole tighter. "If'n ya want."

Carol patted the bed beside herself. He stood and walked around to the other side and slid in under the heavy, white comforter. He put his hands behind his head on the pillow because that would prevent him from having to do something with them when he didn't know where she wanted them. Carol straightened the comforter out, pulled it up a little, and turned to her side and rolled the knob of the kerosene lamp until only the faintest haze of light remained.

He jumped when her head settled against his chest, and she apologized and began to move away.

"No! 'S a'ight. Just wasn't expectin'."

Carol settled her head back on his chest again and pressed her body against his side. He could feel her breasts against his rib cage, firm and pert, and the beginnings of an erection stirred beneath the canvas of his camo pants.

"Do you want to put an arm around me?" she asked, sounding as uncertain as he felt.

"Mhmhm." He slid one hand out from under his head and draped it around her lightly.

Carol's bare toes worked their way under the bottom of his rolled-up pants. They were cold against his flesh, but the sensation wasn't unpleasant. When she slid a hand beneath his shirt and rested it on his stomach, the chill of her fingertips sent a sudden thrill through him, and his erection swelled. He hoped she didn't notice it.

"You're like an electric blanket," she said. "Why are you so warm?"

"Dunno. Just am."

"I like it."

She was quiet for a long time, but from the rhythm of her breaths, he knew she wasn't sleeping. A slight dampness on his undershirt told him she might be crying again, silently this time. "Ya a'ight?"

"I can't stop thinking about it. They were so tiny. And I couldn't…" Her voice cracked and now he knew she was crying.

He put his other arm around her and kissed the top of her head. He didn't even think about it until after he'd done it. He'd just _done_ it, like an animal operating on instinct. The fact confused him. He'd had the instinct to fight before, to shoot, to charge, to fuck, and to flee…but never to _kiss_.

Her hand beneath his shirt, she pushed up the fabric to wipe her eyes with it and then settled her head back down, breathing more evenly now. He was expecting this weirdly white shirt to become stained with sweat, blood, dirt, and oil in the days to come. He'd never imagined tears.

Carol shifted, moving her hand out from beneath his shirt, and her arm brushed his erection.

 _Damnit._ She was crying and he had a raging hard on. She was going to think he was a complete asshole now. "Sorry," he muttered. "Just happens sometimes."

She slid herself upward until they were face to face. Her eyes were a fine light in the darkness. "So it's not because you like being close to me?" For once, her tone wasn't teasing. She sounded almost hurt.

"Nah. No, I mean, yeah. I do. Like it. Like...you." He squeezed his eyelids shut.

Daryl was afraid to open his eyes and look at her, so he wasn't expecting the soft feel of her lips against his. It was just a simple kiss, but the sensual shock of it made him moan and open his mouth. She slid her tongue inside. It tasted of honey. She must have had a dip from one of the jars he'd picked up at the gift shop. Wanting more of that taste, he sucked it off her tongue like he so often sucked his own fingers. She gasped and pulled away. He froze, sure he'd made a mistake, but then she said, "Do that again."

They kissed for a long time, tasting each other's tongues, nibbling each others lips, and exploring each other's mouths. Daryl's mind was foggy. It didn't make any sense, what was happening. Carol didn't want him, did she? But if she didn't, why in the hell was she still kissing him? And why did it feel so damn good? He hadn't known kissing could turn him on so much, or that it could excite a woman even more than touching her on her naughty parts. Carol was breathing hard and whimpering, and she'd started to rub against his leg. Too turned on now to think, Daryl simply acted. He began to fondle her breasts through her tank top.

A knock on the door sent Carol jerking away from his touch.

" _Aw hell!_ " he muttered.

Swallowing to catch her breath, Carol straightened her tank top. She ran her fingers across her lips to dry them. "What is it, Sophia?"

"Where's Mr. Dixon?" Sophia asked frantically through the door. "He's not in the living room! Didn't he come back from the forest?"

"Mr. Dixon's fine. He's sleeping on the floor in here tonight, because I was scared." Carol got out of bed and turned up the kerosene lamp. She had on tight, gray sweat pants that stretched over the curves of her hips and ass. Daryl's erection pulsed painfully against the zipper of his camo pants, and he threw his head back on the pillow and tried to catch his breath.

"I'll just tuck you back in, sweetie." Carol took the lantern and opened the door only wide enough to slip out.


	45. Taking Things Slowly

Sophia's interruption killed the mood for Carol. She couldn't believe she'd gotten as carried away as she had. It had taken all of her courage merely to kiss Daryl. She had simply unwound from there, like a loose spool of thread rolling down a hill. She'd ended up humping Daryl's leg like a damn dog. What was _wrong_ with her?

The kisses were fantastic, as if Daryl was claiming her with just his mouth and savoring every taste, as if it was all new and beautiful to him. But he'd been a little rough when he started fondling her breasts through her shirt, and she feared what might happen if they resumed their foreplay. He was probably used to hard sex with loud women who knew what they were doing, and she was used to submitting rather than expressing her own desires. Carol feared that if they continued down this path, she would drift off to some distant place in her mind, the way she always had with Ed. She didn't want to do that with _Daryl_. She wanted to give him more than a submissive body. She wanted to be wholly present and responsive.

Her stomach was a nervous flutter when she came back through the bedroom door. Daryl was sitting up against the headboard and toying with the edge of the comforter. "Soph a'ight?"

"She's fine. She's back asleep."

Chilly from her trip to Sophia's bedroom, Carol slid hurriedly under the covers. Daryl must have interpreted her haste to get warm as a haste to resume their foreplay, because he bent down to her, crushed her lips with his mouth, and cupped and squeezed a breast through her shirt. She grabbed hold of his hand and moved it away. "Slow down," she said, which was not something she'd ever dared say to Ed. Ed would have ignored her at best and gotten angry and violent at worst.

Daryl, on the other hand, pulled completely away. "Sorry," he muttered, his face red. "Thought ya wanted…" He began chewing viciously on his thumbnail.

"I did…I _do_ …but not so fast. And maybe a bit more gently. Maybe we shouldn't tonight."

"Oh." His eyes flickered with confusion and shame.

"I liked it," she hastened. "I like you. I just…maybe we shouldn't rush into...things."

His eyes darted away. "Thought 's what ya wanted. Weren't trying to take advantage. Swear."

"I know you weren't. I started it."

"Should go." He threw the comforter off himself and began to swivel out of bed.

Carol could see that his erection had died. She grabbed his hand. "No, _please_ don't. Will you stay with me tonight? Just...hold me?"

Daryl didn't tremble before an entire herd of walkers, but she could feel the quiver in his hand now. He was ready to bolt. But he didn't. He sat deadly still for a moment, and then he said. "A'ight." He swung himself back on the bed and pulled the comforter over himself again. She turned down the oil lamp and settled on her side and waited for him to spoon against her. When he did, his warmth enveloped her from shoulder to toes. His arm was strong and his chest solid. She felt _safe._

"When we do," she said, sounding more confident than she felt, "whenever that turns out to be, we should have protection. Especially after what happened to Lori. I'm not very fertile at this age, but I don't want to take any chances." Daryl didn't say anything, and for a terrified moment she wondered if she'd been presumptuous, and he _didn't_ want her, despite all of the recent evidence to the contrary. "I mean, if you _want_ to."

"Do." His husky voice made her tingle. "Want."

She timidly traced the sinews of his arm with a single fingertip. "Did you get any? On the run?"

"T-Dog snagged a shitload of rubbers. Think he's expectin' a Merry Christmas."

"How about you?" she asked, the nervous flutter in her voice breaking through the attempted joking tone. "Are you expecting a Merry Christmas?"

"Ain't got no expectations."

"Well, I hope you'll stuff my stocking."

Daryl's chuckle ruffled her hair. She was pleased, and relieved, to have made him laugh. "See, I can be funny."

"Ain't laughin' at the joke. Laughin' at you. Like a damn junior high boy."

"And about as experienced," she admitted. "Just so you're forewarned."

"Hell's that mean?"

"I lost my virginity to my high school boyfriend. And then there was Ed. And that was it. That's the sum total of my sexual experience. You're probably used to women who are…you know. Better at it than me."

"Ain't rocket science." She could tell he was trying to make his voice sound casual, but to her, it sounded nervous. "And I ain't exactly Hugh Heffner."

"How experienced are you? Did you have a lot of partners?" The word _partners_ sounded ridiculous falling from her lips, as if she was trying to be some sexually casual woman she wasn't. When he didn't say anything, she said, "It's just...they say, before you do it..." God, do _it_. Now she sounded like a teenage girl. Probably not even Beth said _do it._ "...you should know each other's sexual histories."

"Ain't Merle. Ain't got the clap. Swear. Always used a condom. Ain't got nothin'."

"Okay." Carol hadn't even been thinking about that, though she probably _should_ have been. She'd just been worried about what kind of sex he was used to, and whether she could give him what he wanted in bed. She knew he was inexperienced when it came to friendship and courtship, but sex...she didn't know much about his ways and wants there.

It was quiet for a long time, but she knew he wasn't asleep. His body was still a little tense. She wondered if he hated it, all this holding, if it was too much for him given how little he was accustomed to being touched and how long it had taken him just to stop flinching. "Would you rather not…" She was about to say cuddle, but it seemed a strange word to use in conjunction with Daryl. "Do you want your space now?'

"'S a'ight. Yer…soft."

She bit down on her bottom lip so she wouldn't laugh. "I thought you didn't like soft."

"Beds. Like other stuff soft."

"Like blankets?" she asked.

"Mhm. Ya could cover me up. Wouldn't mind none."

She turned in his arms and placed a hand on his cheek. "I _will._ Another night. Some night."

"Don't matter when. Whenever it is...Hell, I'll be willin'."

The eager sound in his voice swelled her long-battered ego, and Carol kissed his lips softly before turning around again. As his arm draped back over her, she felt an unfamiliar surge of power to think that she was in _control_ of this - of what they did physically, and of when they did it.

"You don't tell me what," Ed had yelled at her back at that quarry camp, "I tell you what!" _Fuck you, Ed,_ she thought now, and not for the first time since he'd died. _I even tell Daryl what, and I'll tell you what - Daryl's twenty times the man you ever were._

 _"_ 'S funny?" Daryl grumbled.

Carol hadn't even realized she was laughing. "I'm just happy. Happy you're home safe. Happy we have food for the winter. Happy for all the vegetables, spices, and rubs you brought us."

"Got ya earrings, too, if'n ya want 'em."

"That's sweet. Thank you. But I took my earrings out a month ago and let the holes close up. I didn't think it was practical to keep up with earrings, you know?"

"Told 'em!"

"Told who?"

Daryl shifted his head, so that his scruffle momentarily grazed her cheek. It gave her a little shiver, though for the life of her, she didn't know why. "T-Dog. Said ya wear 'em."

"Well...I _used_ to. Were the sleeves any use?"

"Hell yeah. For walkers and glass. Let one bite me to test it out. Worked damn good."

"You _let_ one bite you? What if the sleeves hadn't worked?"

His sturdy chest shifted against her back as he shrugged. "Knew it would. Yer smart."

"I can't believe you did that! Daryl, that's foolish. That's – "

"- A'ight, fine. _Didn't_ let it. Just happened 'cause I weren't bein' as cautious as I should of."

She sighed. "Well that's better."

"Better I's a dumb ass?"

"Well it would have been even _more_ dumb ass to _let_ it bite you."

He chuckled. She adored the paradoxical sound of his chuckle – manly and boyish at once. "Ya said dumb ass."

She curved back into his body. "You are anything but a dumb ass, Daryl Baby Boy Dixon."

His throat rumbled. That was annoyance - not amusement, or pleasure, but not anger either. She was learning the shades of difference. "Don't tell no one my name."

She chuckled. It felt good - _powerful_ \- to have a secret he didn't want anyone to know.

" _Promise,_ " he insisted.

"I promise."

He kissed the top of her head, and then she didn't hear from him again. She wasn't sure who fell asleep first.

[*]

When Carol fell asleep, Daryl eased carefully away from her. He rolled on his side with his back an inch from hers and watched the starlight seep through the thin slats of the shutters. He wasn't used to holding a woman like that. He'd liked her feminine softness and the comfort his holding seemed to give her, but he wasn't _used_ to it.

He couldn't fully relax with her in his arms. He'd felt like he had to be doing it wrong. And he'd _clearly_ done something wrong when he'd fondled her breasts earlier. He'd just been so damn horny, and it seemed like she'd wanted sex, what with all that thrusting her tongue in his mouth and humping his leg and her nipples hard against the fabric of her tank top. And apparently she did, but just not now. And not the way he was gearing up to do it, either. _More gentle_ , she'd said. Hell, he hadn't even known he was being rough.

Daryl had never met a woman who wanted him for anything more than a quick fuck, or to change a tire or kill a bat that got loose in her cabin. Carol wanted something else, something more, and he wasn't sure he could give it to her.

What was it Darlene had told him when he robbed her on that construction site? _You don't know how to make love._ She was right about that. And Carol deserved a man who knew how to make love to her. Daryl would disappoint her. He'd been frustrated and mortified when she'd told him no tonight, but maybe it was for the best. Hell, maybe it would be good if she didn't want sex for a long, long time, because, as soon as they _did_ do it...maybe she wouldn't want him at all anymore.

A half hour later, when he still couldn't fall asleep, Daryl went and got his sleeping bag and lay it on the floor at the foot of her bed. He plucked the pillow from beside her head and settled down. The rigid planks of the wooden floor suited him, and he drifted off to sleep.

[*]

Carol awoke to find Daryl missing from her bed. She dressed and made her way out to the living room. His tightly rolled sleeping bag rested against the wall on the _opposite_ side of the fire place from where it had been last night. The sight made her heart drop. Had he not wanted to sleep with her last night? Had he come out here?

On the kitchen counter was the half full French press. The glass was still slightly warm to the touch. Either he didn't know how many tablespoons of grounds to use in the contraption, or she'd been making his coffee much weaker than he liked, because the liquid was a thick, almost sludgy, black. As she got herself a coffee cup and poured some, she noticed the note he'd left in the open notebook where she jotted down her meal plans: _Went hunting. – D_

Daryl never left notes to say where he was going. Carol hoped those scrawled words meant he wasn't running away from what had happened last night, even if he did need to be alone to process it.

Carol looked at Daryl's large, clumsy, sweeping cursive letters and wondered if this was the first time he'd ever written a girl a note. She smiled, sipped the coffee, and winced.

[*]

The coyote lay on the leaf-littered forest floor, Daryl's three-vaned aluminum arrow still protruding from its gray-brown hide. A mangy, clothes-torn walker gnawed on its intestines. Daryl wished he'd been able to finish off the coyote last night, instead of allowing it to die a slow, undignified death. But there had been Rick to deal with.

"Rat bastard," Daryl muttered, and let fly an arrow. He walked over and kicked the fallen walker. "So ugly, ya'd make a freight train take a dirt road." He wasn't sure what that phrase meant, exactly, but he'd heard his Uncle Clevus mutter it a dozen times. Daryl ripped the arrow angrily out of the walker's head. Then he recovered his other arrow from the coyote.

How many walkers did that make now? There couldn't be more than seven or eight left this high up on the mountain. Over time, another dozen at most might wander up from the lower campgrounds. Here, walkers were no more a threat than bears. It would be foolish to risk going all the way to Macon for a sanctuary that might not exist anymore. He hoped both T-Dog and Rick had forgotten about Terminus in the tumult of yesterday.

Daryl continued his hunt. It was one of those fickle fall Georgia days - cold in the morning, and then gradually warming up throughout the day, until you couldn't believe it had ever been cold. His feelings for Carol had crept up on him the same way.

The long-sleeve flannel shirt came off. Daryl tied it around his waist and examined the signs of wildlife. Animals thrived here, away from walkers and men. Still, he found nothing worth eating more than the deer they already had in the freezer.

Eventually, he emerged from the forest empty handed. The sun was at its zenith now. Apparently it was just warm enough to give Zach an excuse to remove his shirt while he worked with Glenn, T-Dog, and Maggie to build the smokehouse in the park between the two cabins. Darlene was in the treehouse watchtower, and Beth and Andrea were just sitting on the swings and talking to each other.

"Ain't y'all got work to do?" Daryl grumbled as he passed the two women.

"We're supervising," Beth said and giggled. She was watching Zach as he sawed on the other side of the park.

Daryl took the long way around the park, so he'd be sure to pass Zach. He stood silently beside the kid until he stopped sawing and looked up.

"Need something?" Zach asked.

"Got to angle the saw. Holdin' it too straight. Holdin' it like a girl."

Zach brushed some sawdust off the beam he was working on. "Okay." His eyes flitted to Beth on the distant swing and then back to the wood.

"Beth's only sixteen. And put yer damn shirt back on. Ain't that hot."

"She turns seventeen next week. And I'm not even twenty yet. It's not like I'm thirty-seven." Zach risked a quick glance at Daryl. "You know, your interest in her is a little skeevy."

"Ain't interested in her! Interested in you keepin' it in yer pants, frat boy. Beth's a girl. Got me a _woman_."

"Who?" Zach asked.

"Carol." Shit. Why had he said that? Laid claim like that? Just because she was kissing on him last night didn't mean she was _his_.

"I didn't realize you were together like that," Zach said.

"Don't tell 'er that."

"What?" Zach scratched his forehead. "Don't tell Carol you're together? If you are...wouldn't she know?"

"Forget I said it."

Zach chuckled and shook his head. "All right." He went back to sawing. "Listen, I'm a guy. So I'm going to notice a pretty girl, especially when she might be the last girl my age on earth. " The hewn wood fell with a clunk to the ground. "But I hear you. You want me to behave respectfully toward Beth. Message received. Not that I _needed_ the message, because I'm not the jag-off you imagine me to be."

Daryl looked him slowly up and down, surprised Zach wasn't more intimidated by him. "Need to sand that end," he told Zach before he clomped off.

[*]

As Daryl passed Carl and Sophia in the living room of the big cabin, he could see Carl's blue Stratego armies arrayed on the game board on the coffee table. Sophia sat on the floor on the other side. He winked to her and gestured with his eyes to the far left corner of the board where Carl had placed his flag, and Sophia smiled.

Daryl walked on to the kitchen. His heart climbed into his throat when Carol turned around from the open pantry. She was pretty in a subtle way that snuck up on a man.

"Hungry?" she asked. "You missed lunch."

"Mhmm."

She tossed him a package of trail mix, which he caught and then ripped open with his teeth before pouring a third of it straight into his mouth.

"Find anything on the hunt?"

He chewed and swallowed hard. "Dead coyote. Walker. 'S dead now." He was glad she wasn't mentioning last night. He nodded to the notebook. "Doin' inventory?"

"I'm making meal plans, trying to figure out how long this food will last us."

"How long ya think?" He tossed another handful of trail mix in his mouth.

"Depends how much meat you catch, and if the smokehouse works to preserve it. I guess hunting will be harder in winter?"

"Be colder. Trees'll be all bare. Easier to see game. But also easier for it to see me. Have to still hunt, I reckon."

"Still hunt?" she asked.

"Go as slow as possible. Then go slower. That's how ya get what yer chasin'."

She smiled, a coquettish, knowing little smile that puzzled him. "Is it?"

Daryl fished around in the bottom of the trail mix package for the last nut. "Mhmhm. Cain't scare 'em off. 'Fore they know it, yer on top of 'em."

Carol chuckled.

"What's so damn funny?"

"Nothing. I was just thinking that's how I've been hunting you."

Daryl flushed. "Had me in yer sights last night," he muttered. "Let me go." He crumbled the empty trail mix package and tossed it in the trashcan.

"Is that why you left the bed and went to sleep in the living room?"

He felt guilty for his complaint. He didn't want her to think that he'd left the bed just because he wasn't getting any. "Nah. No. Didn't."

"It's just...your sleeping bag was on the other side of the fireplace."

He swallowed. "Just ain't used to a soft bed. Held ya 'til ya fell asleep. Then slept on the floor in your room. Not the livin' room. Stayed nearby ya."

"So…it wasn't anything I did?"

"Nah." He picked at a chipped spot on the counter. "Liked kissin' on ya. Liked bein' with ya 'til ya fell asleep."

"Then maybe you can lay with me me again tonight? Move to the floor _after_ I'm asleep?"

"On watch ten to midnight."

"I'll wait up for you," she said. "We'll have tea and then go to bed. If you want."

"Mhmhm," he muttered to the counter top. "Like that."

"I appreciate your patience, Daryl."

He looked up at her, a little curious. "Ain't no one ever accused me of patience before."

"Well, _I'm_ accusing you." She put her pencil in the spiral of her notebook and eased the tension by changing the subject. "Won't a lot of animals hibernate this winter?"

"Bear season's 'til December in Georgia. Doves 'til January. Crow and rabbit 'til February. Coyote year round. Not that I got to abide by the law no more. Be some winter whitetail deer. Still, thinkin' might make one more supply run 'fore it gets cold, too."

"A run to where?" she asked.

"Checked that phone book in our cabin. Camp store buried in the foot hills. Diner too. Ain't far. Closer 'n the village even. Diner might have canned food."

"Who goes camping and then goes to a diner?"

"City folk," Daryl said. "Park workers eat there maybe."

"Maybe I should go with you," Carol suggested.

On a run? Where the hell had that come from? She was getting real good with a gun, no question, and she'd killed a few walkers now, but a run? "Hell no."

"Excuse me?" Her blue eyes flashed.

"Just...mean...yer a mama. Cain't leave yer girl. Cain't take 'er."

"Rick left Carl."

"With _his_ mama."

Carol raised an eyebrow. "You're telling me Rick won't ever leave Carl to go on another run now that Lori's gone?"

"Daddies ain't mamas."

She shook her head. "You're quite the chauvinist, aren't you? You hunt while I'm supposed to cook and clean and stay barefoot in the kitchen."

"I'd wear shoes if I's you. Somethin' hot might spit out the pan, burn yer foot."

She laughed. "I suppose I don't really want to leave Sophia. I just want to feel more _useful_."

"And feedin' everyone ain't useful? Shootin' that walker ya shot on watch yesterday weren't useful? Bein' here for Carl when - " He stopped. She probably didn't want to be reminded of that. "Where's Rick?"

"He went to find wildflowers for Lori's grave. I'm worried about him. He's been a little erratic."

"No shit. Carl seemed a'ight though. Playin' a game with Soph."

Carol nodded. "Kids are more resilient than adults, I think. The grief will hit him in waves, on and off. But today he's just living."

"Boy needs a job. Purpose. Cain't just play games all the damn time. Gonna teach 'em to pluck and skin game with me."

"That's a good idea, but they don't play games _all_ the time. Rick's been teaching them both to shoot. Lori was homeschooling them, and Beth and Zach have volunteered to continue that."

"Zach?" Daryl asked.

"He was double majoring in math and education at UNG. He wanted to become a high school math teacher and rifle team coach. And with Rick being a little...off...Zach's going to keep teaching the kids to shoot."

"Sure has made himself at home."

"Why shouldn't he?" Carol asked. "He has skills to contribute to the community."

"Don't like the way he looks at Beth."

Carol chuckled. "Well, I think you're going to have to accept that something is inevitably going to happen there. People pair off in the apocalypse." She smiled at him. "It happens."

"Reckon so." His ears felt hot. That smile had to mean she was pairing off with him. But for how long before she realized he wasn't exactly boyfriend material? "Gonna go check on the kids." He walked by her and planted a quick, clumsy kiss on her cheek. That's what couples did. He'd seen T-Dog do it to Darlene a hundred times. But Darlene didn't usually turn her head in surprise and smack noses with T-Dog. "Sorry," Daryl muttered and vanished from the kitchen.


	46. Gifts and Advice

When Daryl re-entered the living room, Sophia was in the process of capturing Carl's flag. As the kids began putting the pieces away, Daryl slid the dolphin necklace he'd picked up in the village out of the pocket of his camo pants. "Got somethin' for ya, Soph."

Sophia's eyes lit up as she pulled herself into a standing position, limped over without her cane, and reached for it. Carl helped her put the necklace on, and her freckled face broke out into a great big smile. "Thank you, Daryl, thank you!" She threw her arms around him. Looking sheepish, she pulled away. "I mean, _Mr. Dixon_."

"Don't worry." Daryl tried, unsuccessfully, to supress his smile. "Won't tell yer mama."

"Get anything for me?" Carl asked.

"Ammo for yer .22." Carl was going to become a man fast in this world, Daryl suspected, especially now that the boy didn't have Lori hovering over him. Still, Carol was right. They needed to be kids sometimes. "And this." Daryl fished a plastic egg of silly putty out of his pocket.

"Silly putty!" Carl immediately removed the mess from the egg and began pulling it apart and then rolling it back into a ball.

Carol entered the living room and rested a hand on the back of the armchair. "Never thought of you as a gift giver. I don't guess you got many gifts growing up."

"Did. At Christmas. One time a year I felt like my daddy didn't hate me."

On Christmas morning, the unfinished floor beneath the forest-hewn Dixon tree overflowed with presents Will Dixon couldn't possibly afford. Half of them had probably been bought with questionable sources of income and the other half with even more questionable sources of credit, but it was a point of pride in those backwoods for a man to be able to fill the space beneath and around his tree. The more shit he gave his kids at Christmas, the bigger a man he was. There were plastic Big Wheels, bicycles, wooden go karts, squirt guns, cap guns, pop guns, dart guns, BB guns, lawn darts (Daryl almost lost a foot with those), plastic paddling pools, dart boards, bows and arrows, dominoes, marbles, Hot Wheels, punching bags, and on and on. Most of the stuff Daryl got one year would be broken or lost or stolen by the next, but when he was a boy, that floor beneath that tree was never bare. And Mama's stocking was always stuffed to overflowing with those little bottles of booze and lotto tickets.

Given what he got, Daryl imagined that the kids in the middle-class houses in the valley beneath his mountain must have had _entire_ living rooms full wall-to-wall of Christmas presents. It wasn't until he was in his twenties and he'd done some painting work on those houses that he realized that maybe that wasn't quite how it worked, that maybe if you didn't buy a lot of useless shit, you had more money to buy groceries and pay the electric bill.

In exchange for some choice motorcycle parts, Daryl had once painted the interior of the house of a mechanic who worked in the same shop as his father. Joe Mason had to make about the same amount of money as Will Dixon, and he had two young kids, but he lived in a nice middle-class house. There were no empty beer cans or liquor bottles in his living room. He only had one vehicle in the driveway, instead of a pick-up, a motorcycle, and two useless cars on blocks. There were no dirty clothes in the corners. No cigarette burn holes tore up the fabric of the couch, no legs had been kicked off the coffee table, and the backs of the kitchen chairs weren't broken and bent. Last year's Christmas gifts did not lay muddied, abused, and strewn across the yard. If that man had not worked with his father, it never would have occurred to Daryl that Joe Mason didn't have some white collar, easy-money job. It was the first time Daryl had ever considered that maybe his own poverty wasn't caused by lack of money.

After he painted Joe Mason's walls, Daryl started to pay more attention to where his money went. He'd buy two or three fewer beers every time he went out with Merle. He switched to a cheaper brand of cigarettes. He'd save and hide money in his boots, and within three years, he'd saved up enough for a small down payment on his very own trailer. That was when he finally told Merle about the money. He told his big brother he was done roaming from town to town and job to job, that he was going to settle down, and Merle could live with him if he wanted, or he could keep roaming by himself.

They lived in a one-bedroom efficiency apartment at the time, and Merle had the bedroom while Daryl slept on the living room floor. The next morning, Daryl woke up to an empty pair of boots. Merle apologized and said it was the stripper he'd brought home who stole it. "She must of snuck out when I was passed out." Daryl believed him back then, even after Merle's drug dealer suddenly stopped hounding him for money owed, because he'd _wanted_ to believe him.

But if Daryl liked giving gifts, maybe it was because he still remembered what it felt like on Christmas morning to see those presents beneath the tree – like maybe his daddy really did care about him, like maybe things would be different from now on. They never were. But he remembered what the hope felt like, before the glorious Christmas morning melted away into the drunken, angry, same old New Year.

[*]

Carol loved the silence that surrounded the dinner table, because it meant everyone was pleased with her cooking. Beth hummed as she ate. Zach, who sat with her at the kids' table, smiled.

When the plates lay empty, Carol let the compliments wash over her. "Well, thank the supply runners." She smiled across the table at Daryl,

Beth rose and cleared the plates. When Zach saw her doing it, he helped, and then he said, "I need to relieve T-Dog on watch so he can eat." He looked at Carol. "Want me to take the kids to play in the park, ma'am?"

" _Ma'am_ ," Andrea said. "Aren't you special? I didn't get ma'am this afternoon."

"Maybe I'm just old," Carol said. "And while I appreciate the offer, Zach, you can't watch the kids and watch for walkers from the treehouse."

"I'll go with him," Beth volunteered. "I'll watch the kids."

When the kids' table had cleared out, Carol served decaf coffee. She'd just poured the last cup when T-Dog returned from the watchtower, sat down, and began shoveling his awaiting dinner into his mouth.

Rick took one sip from his mug and said, "We need to talk about Terminus."

"About what?" Glenn asked.

Rick told them what they'd heard on the radio.

"Oh. Wow," Glenn said. "Like...an entire town?"

"We don't know," Rick said. "But we need to go find out."

"Need to stay here," Daryl muttered, "where we know what we got. And what we got's good." His eyes only flitted to her for a moment, but Carol noticed.

Rick pushed his coffee cup aside. "Lori might not have died at Terminus. They probably have better medical care." Darlene gripped the handle of her mug tightly and looked cooly away. "We can't build a permanent home here," Rick went on. "There are only twelve of us, and there are only so many places nearby to make supply runs."

"Got plenty," Daryl said. "Thinkin' 'bout makin' a run on a camp store and a diner in a day or two. Get even more. Oughtta hunker down for the winter. Ain't no damn sense movin' now."

"The smokehouse is coming along nicely," Maggie said. "I'm with Daryl. I've seen what's out there on the roads. Men like Negan. No reason to risk the highway."

"We need to at least scout it out," Rick insisted.

"I have to agree." T-Dog wiped his mouth with a cloth napkin. "If it turns out to be nothing, we can loot a few places on the way to Macon and back, gather more stuff."

"Long way," Daryl said. "Ain't worth the risk, not now, not when winter's comin' on. "

"Maybe that's why we should go now," Andrea suggested. " _Because_ winter's coming on. If they've got electricity, _heat,_ then - "

"- We've got fireplaces," Carol interrupted. "Wood stoves. The men brought back propane and kerosene and coal."

"Weren't no central heat where me and Darlene grew up," Daryl said. "Ain't nobody froze to death. Ya block the drafts with towels, wear long skivvies to bed, use extra blankets."

Darlene wiggled her eyebrows at T-Dog. "And cuddle up."

"We are not spinning our wheels here!" Rick insisted. "What if someone gets sick, and we don't have any real medical care?"

"Look, I'm sorry I couldn't save your wife!" Darlene spat at him. "But to get to Macon, we're gonna have to go down past Atlanta again, and you know what that was like. And then Macon itself had 90,000 people. There may be herds to push through. Do you _really_ want to risk dying out there on the highway in case someone might need a better nurse than me one day?"

"Daryl went all the way to Kentucky and back without dying," Rick said. "It's not that bad out there."

"Almost did die!" Daryl exclaimed.

"Our father died," Maggie reminded Rick. "Killed by the men who almost killed Daryl. Two of our neighbors, _and_ Beth's boyfriend."

"We're going to check this place out," Rick said. "Period. End of discussion."

"Screw that!" Darlene cried. "Who the hell died and made you king?"

Rick leaned over the table toward her. "You know who died. And _why_."

Darlene leaned forward and matched his gaze. "I know you're upset. I know you just lost the woman you spent two decades of your life with. And if it helps you to blame me, you go on ahead and do that. But you're not thinking straight. Take a breather for a couple days. Work out your anger. Think of your son. And then, when you're more level headed, if you _still_ want to do this foolish thing, T-Dog'll go with you."

"I will?" T-Dog asked.

"You're the one who seemed to think we oughtta check it out," she said.

"Yeah, but...everyone else made some good arguments, too."

Rick's eyes smoldered for a minute, and then he blinked, like he was coming to after a dream. He pushed back his chair and marched out of the cabin. The slamming of the front door echoed all the way to the kitchen.

Daryl sighed and grabbed his crossbow. "I'll follow 'em."

[*]

A rock skipped across the surface of the stream and sunk with a plonk in a spot where the setting sun painted quivering orange shadows on the water. "Daryl, if you're back there, just come out."

Daryl, crossbow held casually in his hands, emerged slowly from behind a tree and made his way to the shore beside Rick.

"Are you going to follow me every time I go for a walk alone?" Rick asked.

"Darlene's right. Ya ain't been thinkin' straight."

"Because I don't agree about Terminus?"

"Ya need to pay more attention to yer son. Boy just lost his mama. And ya need to stop bein' so angry and yellin' at people and stormin' off."

"Oh, _you're_ one to talk about _that,_ aren't you?" Rick sent a rock flying. A toad croaked and leaped from the water.

"Ain't like yerself."

"Anything else you want to scold me for while you're at it?" Rick asked.

"Ya need to stop blamin' Darlene for somethin' ain't nobody could control."

Rick opened his hand and the rocks slipped like hard hail to the gravely shore.

Daryl looked at them lying haphazardly on the ground. "Ya know bravin' the highway all the way to Macon is a dumb ass idea this close to winter, safe as we are. Ya _know_ that, don't ya?"

Rick sighed. "It can't be only the twelve of us forever."

"A'ight. Then we go to Terminus in spring. After the thaw. When the weather's good and our canned food's runnin' low again. Even if Terminus still exists, we don't know if they's gonna make it through the winter. We _know_ we can."

The ex-cop rested a hand on the butt of his revolver. "I'm just so restless right now."

"Run with me to that camp store and diner then. Close by. Leave the day after tomorrow. Won't be gone but half a day."

Rick dug at a rock in the shore with the toe of his boot. "I've been taking things out on Darlene," he admitted. "But you know who I'm _really_ angry with?"

Daryl eyed him curiously.

"Myself," Rick answered.

"Weren't yer fault. Couldn't of saved her if ya was here."

"That's not why. I hate myself because, while I feel sorrow and loss, I also feel _relief_. I knew Lori's baby - babies - were Shane's. I was desperate to find Lori and Carl when I woke up in that hospital, and the whole time…" Rick shook his head. "She was fucking my best friend."

Daryl looked away from Rick's hurt and angry eyes to scan the woods on the other side of the stream.

"In a way, she'd left me months before that, though," Rick continued. "There was this distance between us. I tried. God knows I tried to be a decent husband. You spend half your life with someone, you raise a child together...you can't just walk away. I guess I thought this apocalypse would bring us all closer together. And for a time, it did. But after awhile…I just felt trapped. It was going to be Lori, _forever,_ whether she loved me or _not_. And truth be told, I'm not sure she did. Now that she's gone, I feel _free._ " He swallowed. "Because I'm a monster." He nodded across the shore. "No better than that walker right there."

The creature slid down the embankment and plopped with a hungry growl into the water. Daryl readied his bow and waited until it was close by to shoot so he wouldn't have to wade in far to recover his arrow. He still got his pants wet up to two inches above the ankles.

"Ya ain't like a damn walker," he told Rick when he returned to shore. "Walker's don't feel nothin' at all, 'cept hunger."

"It would be better if that's all I felt," Rick muttered.

"A man cain't help feelin' shit. Ain't what ya feel matters. 'S what ya _do_." Daryl reloaded his crossbow. "You was gonna do the right thing by Lori, no matter what ya felt. _That's_ the kind of man you are. So do the right thing by yer boy. Give him a home for the winter, here. Stop talkin' bout Terminus. And c'mon, now." He jerked his head toward the woods, and, beyond them, the cabins. "C'mon now and get back to yer boy."

As he had the night before, Daryl turned and walked through the forest, trusting Rick would follow.

[*]

The park was dark and empty and Beth was in the treehouse with Zach when Daryl went to assume his ten to midnight watch. The young couple was laughing and smiling at each other and didn't notice his quiet approach. Zach's hand was on top of Beth's on the rail. The kid was leaning in for a kiss when Daryl let loose an arrow, which lodged itself in a wall of the tree house three feet to the left of Zach.

"Fuck!" Zach swung his rifle hurriedly from his shoulder, peered through the scope, and scanned in all directions, but by now Daryl was melded to the tree beneath the platform where he couldn't be seen.

"Be dead if I weren't friendly," he called up, and then he scaled the rope ladder.

"Jesus, Daryl!" Beth cried when he crested the platform. " _Really_?"

Zach ripped the arrow out of the tree and handed it back to him. "Wouldn't exactly call you friendly."

"Ain't no point takin' a watch if ya ain't gonna watch," Daryl told Zach as he slid his arrow back in his quiver.

"There's not much _to_ watch," Zach said defensively. "Pretty sure a walker can't shoot a bow and he'd start growling eventually."

"And if some gang came up the mountain?" Daryl asked.

"We'd hear the engines. And they'd have to stop at the line of cars and get out." Zach held up a hand. "But point taken. I'll pay more attention next time."

Zach shook his head, shimmied down the ladder first, and then waited for Beth, who pretended to lose her grip two rungs from the bottom and let Zach catch her.

"That guy wigs me out," Zach said to Beth as they headed down the hill. Their voices faded away as Daryl scanned for threats in all directions.


	47. How to Make Love to a Woman

Daryl savored his solitude. These two-hour shifts must pass like a slow torture for most of the others, but he liked the soothing sounds of the forest, the expansive sky, the smoke curling from the chimneys of the two cabins. He imagined Carol tucking in Sophia and then curling up on the couch to read before the fireplace and wait up for him. It was a ridiculous thought, the idea of _anyone_ waiting up for _him_ , and yet...she'd said she would. What would happen then, Daryl couldn't guess. Carol hadn't been too clear about what she wanted tonight, other than that she wanted him in bed with her again. He hoped he didn't make a fumbling mess of it - whatever _it_ turned out to be.

At midnight, Darlene came to relieve him. "You say somethin' to Rick?" she asked as she crested the platform.

He slid his crossbow onto his back. "Why?"

Darlene unshouldered her rifle. "'Cause he apologized for being an asshole to me. More or less."

Daryl shrugged. He put his hands on the railing of the tree house porch and looked down at the decaying mulch below. It was time to go to Carol, and he had no idea what to do with her.

"'Fraid to go home?" Darlene teased.

"If I ask ya somethin' serious – ya promise not to make fun?"

"Last time I made a promise to anyone was 1989. I ain't gonna start now. But ask away."

Daryl swallowed. "'Member what ya said to me on that construction site?"

"Said a lot of things."

"'Bout how I ain't never made love to a woman?"

Darlene raised her rifle, looked through the scope at something in the woods, and then lowered it. "Yeah, I remember."

"Say I wanted to learn."

Darlene chuckled, low and amused.

"Fuck it. Forget I asked." He headed for the rope ladder.

"Get back here, Dixon!"

He turned and faced her with an annoyed gaze.

"First off, you got to light some candles and play some Barry White," Darlene said with a smile. "And then some Marvin Gaye. Van Morrison. Definitely Van Morrison. A girl could have an orgasm just listenin' to his voice."

"If you ain't gonna be serious - "

"- Fine! I'll be serious."

He narrowed his eyes but walked a little closer and leaned with his arms crossed on the railing, one knee bent, and one boot back, his eyes on the ground below.

"Number one - don't do what she don't like. She says she don't like somethin', she moves your hand away, you cut that shit out right away."

"Hell, I can do that. Always done that."

"Yeah, but you got to do it without takin' it _personal_. Every woman's got different likes and dislikes. Don't mean you've done something wrong if you try something and she don't like it. But the tricky thing here is just 'cause she don't like it one time don't mean she won't like it the next."

"What?"

"It's a woman's prerogative to change her mind. And she will. Not about everything, but about a lot of things. That part's guesswork."

"Shit," he muttered.

"Number two - do what she _does_ like. Not what _you_ like. Not what someone woman you fucked in the past liked. What _she_ likes."

"How in the hell am I s'posed to know what she likes?"

"Well, you can _ask_ her, genius."

"Oh."

"Except that might not work too well with Carol." Daryl flushed when Darlene said her name. "Because she might not know what she wants. She was married to an abusive asshole who didn't take her desires into account. She probably hasn't had a chance to discover what she likes. So you're just gonna have to try things and hope for the best."

"What if I guess wrong?"

"Well, try anything new real slow. Little at a time. Inch by inch. See how she responds. See if she likes it 'fore you go whole hog. You know, don't just start groping her tits right out the gate." Now Daryl flushed all the way red, because he'd sort of done that last night. "And don't drop drawers on her. Let her undress you when and how she wants."

Darlene fell silent. Daryl wasn't sure if it was because she was looking at a movement in the woods or because that was all she had to say. "That's it?" he asked.

"That's it. In _general._ But with Carol…you got to keep in mind she's been abused. Reckon you're gonna have to be extra gentle with her. Not forever. But at _first._ You can't just throw her up against a tree and ravish her."

"Ain't never thrown no one up against a tree." Daryl headed for the ladder.

"Hold up! Ain't told you the most important thing yet."

Daryl turned around and leaned back against the railing closest to the exit. He studied his boots. "'S that?"

"The key to makin' love to a woman, is that you got to love her. And if you _do_ , ain't really got to worry about none of the rest of it. It'll all fall into place anyhow. Lucky for you, you love Carol, so you can go ahead and cross that one off your list."

Daryl jerked his head up and peered at her. "How in the hell ya know that?" _He_ didn't know that.

"''Cause you just humiliated yourself enough to ask me how to make love to her. You ever cared 'bout making love to a woman before?"

Daryl didn't respond.

"You ever played daddy to a woman's child before?"

Is that what he was doing with Sophia?

"Answer's no," Darlene said. "You ain't never smoked on the porch 'cause a woman asked you not to smoke in the house. You ain't never changed your clothes for a woman. You ain't never done a dozen of the things you've _already_ done for Carol."

"You done?"

"No, I ain't done," Darlene said. "Want to say one more thing. I'm happy for you, Daryl. You need yourself a woman like Carol, who's _quietly_ strong. Who'll build you up and never knock you down. She'll do you good, Dixon. Now go on home to her and don't fuck it up."

Daryl didn't look at Darlene as he made his way down the ladder, but when he was on the ground, she leaned over the rail and said. "Vanity under the double sinks in the second bathroom of the big cabin. In those two closed cardboard boxes."

"What?"

"That's where the extra condoms and lubes are. When y'all decide you need them."

Daryl turned and walked off in a hurry, Darlene's chortle drifting after him.

When he got to the little cabin, with its shutters all locked shut for the night and smoke still drifting gently from the chimney, he paused. He wiped his boots on the welcome mat, which wasn't something he'd ever thought to do before, but it gave him time to steady his nerves. He scraped the mud off in long, hard strokes, like a bull gearing up for a fight. It must have made too much noise, because the door flew open, and Carol stood there, handgun drawn, safety off, hammer cocked, but – he was glad to see – finger off the trigger.

Her shoulders fell with relief. "What are you doing out here?" she asked as she put on the safety and lowered her gun. "I thought you were a walker from all the scuffling. Get inside."

[*]

While Carol made them tea, Daryl went to the bathroom to wash up and get changed. He had a bit of walker blood on his white undershirt. Maybe he shouldn't have used it to clean his arrow this evening. His pants were muddy from wading in the stream. He tossed the bloody shirt and camo pants in the laundry basket in the bathroom. Then he slipped off his boxers and tossed them in too. The cool air of the bathroom hit his naked skin and sent a shiver through his flesh.

The laundry basket was almost full now. It was strange to think those clothes would all be magically cleaned in a day or two. His mama had rarely done laundry. He'd learned to turn his underwear inside out after the first two days, and then change it after the fourth. Sometimes, when their clothes got really foul, mama'd buy new ones at the thrift store and they'd just throw the old ones out. They didn't own a washing machine, and Mama said the washboard was too much trouble to hassle with more than once a month.

Over his scarred back, he slid on another one of those unholy white t-shirts - the second from the pack of three. Carol had left him a pile of clothes in the linen cabinet - things she'd found in drawers in the cabins that she'd guessed might fit. Some did. Some didn't. Tonight, he pulled on a pair of gray sweat pants and yanked the drawstring tight to keep them from slipping off his waist. He didn't like sweat pants. It was hard to carry a gun and a knife without a solid waistband. He felt a little guilty for slipping them on, because the truth was he was thinking about how Merle used to go commando to strip clubs, wearing nothing but thin athletic pants, because, he told Daryl, that made the lap dances better. If Carol decided to rub on his leg tonight, like she'd been doing last night, and then she shifted a little on top of him...well, it was going to feel a hell of a lot better through this soft fabric than through heavy canvas.

Daryl brushed his teeth, in case Carol decided to kiss on him again, and then he came out and settled down into the arm chair. Carol wandered over from the kitchen and handed him his warm cup of tea. He took one sip and winced. The honey and peach flavor tasted weird in his toothpaste-minty mouth.

"Did I make it too strong?"

"Nah. 'S good."

As she sat down on the couch cushion nearest his chair, he noticed that her flannel pajamas, which were about two inches short at the sleeves and bottoms, were pink and covered with bunnies. Unlike him, she probably wasn't thinking about sexy fun time tonight. "Like my jammies?" she asked when she caught him staring.

"Uh..."

"I love them. The woman who vacationed here had impeccable tastes. You should see her purple corduroy pants. Tomorrow, if you're lucky."

He smiled into his cup. "Don't guess she was the hunter of the family. " But there had been a hunter in this cabin. There was a bear skin rug before the fireplace, a deer's head mounted on the wall, and a hunting rifle above the mantle. Daryl had found bear traps in the shed, which he planned to try out soon, camo, and an orange hunting vest. This cabin had been empty of walkers. The family probably used the place from September to early December and just left some of their stuff here. It was a weird thought to Daryl - two homes and enough things to fill them both.

Carol sipped her tea and then said, "I didn't think you'd ever put those sweat pants on. I've never seen you in anything but cargos, Wranglers, or camos."

"They's clean." Daryl stared at the coffee table, afraid she would read his dirty thoughts if she saw his eyes. That's when he noticed the marked-up map and phone book. "'S all this?"

Carol scooted to the edge of her cushion and pushed the open map a little closer to him. "I was thinking about that run you want to make. That's the diner." She pointed to a red circle. "And that's the camp store you were talking about."

"'S the third circle?"

"A biker church. I thought you might want to check it out."

"Think I need religion?"

She chuckled. "I think they might have a food pantry. I don't know. Lots of churches do. I've never been to a biker church though."

"Been a few times."

She looked at him with surprise. "You have?"

"Merle took me sometimes."

"To church?" she asked skeptically.

"Thought it was a good place to pick up chicks."

She laughed. "Did you like it?"

He shook his head. "Silly. Played hard rock music and just changed the lyrics. Random people got up testifyin' and shit. Sermons had all these damn stupid motorcycle metaphors. If I _gotta_ go to church, rather go to the old timey type one my Aunt May used to drag me to. Least that felt like it was rooted to somethin'. "

"I used to love church," Carol said. "Mainly the fellowship. Just the feeling of belonging to a community. But Ed thought I got too involved, too social with it. He kept demanding I scale back, and then, eventually, we stopped going all together. I missed it." She ran a finger up the side of her mug and took a small sip. "I missed the people, mostly, but I missed the music too. What's your favorite hymn?"

"Dunno."

"Come on, you've got to have one, if you got dragged to _old timey_ church."

"Reckon..." He shrugged. "Amazin' Grace. Just liked the idea of bein' found is all. Got lost in the woods for nine days once when I's a boy. Ain't no one come lookin' for me. Nice to think, if there _is_ a God, he actually looks for his kids. That and…my Aunt May told me man who wrote that used to be a slaver. So if he can get found, she said, hell, anyone can get found."

"Was your Aunt May your mom's sister?"

"Nah. My Uncle Clevus's wife."

"Your cousin Billy Ray's mother?" Carol asked.

"Nah. Uncle Clevus knocked up a waitress down at the bar. After she had Billy Ray, she left him on their doorstep and skipped town. Aunt May raised Billy Ray like her own. But she ain't never had no kids herself. My daddy always said she was one of them lesbians and Clevus just married her so he'd have someone to cook his super."

"Sounds romantic."

"Got along hell of a lot better than my folks, even with all of Clevus's runin' 'round. She was twelve years older 'n 'em. Still outlived 'em though." Daryl felt a lot more relaxed now. "Easy to talk to ya," he said.

"That's because I put a psychedelic in the tea."

"What?"

She laughed.

He smiled. It got quiet, and he figured that meant it was his turn to speak. He wasn't sure what to say, so he asked, "'S yer favorite hymn?"

She settled back against the couch. " _It Is Well With My Soul_. Got me through some dark times."

"Dunno that one."

"Really?" She sang a little of it: " _When peace like a river, attendeth my way, / When sorrows like sea billows roll; / Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to know / It is well, it is well, with my soul._ "

"Didn't know ya could sing,"

"Well, not like Beth." She took a sip of her tea.

"Like yer voice better, though." It was just a little unsteady, which made it somehow more human.

"The man who wrote that lost his son when the boy was just two," Carol said. "In the great fire of Chicago, which ruined him financially. So to recover, he was going to go work in Europe. He sent the rest of his family ahead of himself, and their ship sank, and all four of his daughters died."

"Jesus."

"His wife survived and sent him a telegram that said – saved alone. And then he wrote that song."

" _That's_ when he wrote it?" Daryl asked.

Carol nodded. "So I sing it to myself, in my mind, whenever bad things happen, like…" she swallowed. "When so many people died at the quarry camp. When I thought Sophia was going to die. After I had to stab those little babies." Her cup trembled as she brought it to her lips. She sniffled into it.

Daryl wasn't relaxed anymore. His eyes fixed on that shaking cup. He felt more helpless than before a herd of walkers. "Carol…ya got to tell me what to do."

"Come here. Please."

Daryl put his cup down on the coffee table. He took hers from her hand and put it down, too, and then he slid down onto the couch next to her and wrapped an arm awkwardly around her shoulders, hoping it was the right thing to do. She turned and buried her face in his clean, white shirt. She wasn't crying exactly – he couldn't feel any tears - but she was balling the fabric in her fist and breathing unevenly.

He said, "Shhhh..." even though she wasn't making much noise, because he didn't know what else to say.

After a while, her breathing steadied. She pulled away, dried the slight dampness between her eyes, and said, "Put out the fire and come to bed."


	48. Finally!

Carol loved the unpredictable feel of Daryl's stubble beneath her fingertips, rough and then strangely soft and then rough again, much like Daryl himself. Her fingers found his ear next, as they lay side by side in bed. She traced the edge softly and played gently with his earlobe, which made his breathing slow. She leaned in and ventured a light nibble on the soft flesh at the lobe. He made a little grunt of a type she'd never heard come out of him, and she knew she'd found a vulnerable spot. This time, she swirled her tongue around it and then nibbled a little harder.

"Sweet Jesus," he rumbled and turned his head until his lips were on hers.

She'd left the kerosene lamp on a low, enough to provide a little mood lighting, but not too much to expose them fully to each other. His chapped lips slid across hers, and his tongue explored her mouth. His erection pressed through the soft fabric of his sweatpants against her bare stomach where a button was missing from her PJ shirt.

He pulled away, breathing heavily. "'S a'ight?"

"Mhmhm," she murmured, urging him close gain with a hand to the back of his head.

"Ya like?"

"I like," she assured him.

He slid a hand into the opening of her PJ top and rested it cautiously on her bare waist before resuming the kissing. The heat of his fingertips moved centimeter by centimeter across her skin from her waist to her rib cage, bit by tantalizing bit…until his hand came to a dead stop just below her breast. He clearly wasn't going to risk another inch.

Carol shifted herself down into his hand, and his palm closed gently around the firm mound. He squeezed once, very softly, like a butterfly folding its wings, and she hummed against his lips. He dragged his mouth across her cheek to her ear. "Ya like?" he asked. "'S aight?"

His husky voice was doing things that no mere touch had ever done. "I like," she croaked.

"'N this?" He circled her nipple gently with his callused thumb until it grew hard.

She yanked at his hair and murmured his name.

"Yeah?" he asked.

"Yes…yes…yes…Put your mouth there. _Please._ "

He quickly and clumsily undid the remaining three buttons on her pajama shirt, slowing down suddenly when he got to the top one, as though he feared he'd been too hasty. He was working the last button out so slowly that she squirmed with impatience and undid it for him before rolling onto her back.

Gently, he parted the fabric to reveal her breasts.

 _You need more meat on those,_ Ed had repeatedly told her, and now Carol found herself uneasy beneath Daryl's gaze. She was feeling ready to make excuses for herself when he murmured, "Damn." She didn't think Daryl's voice could get any deeper, but it did. "Beautiful." And then he bent his head down to suckle her. His tongue swirled one nipple and then the other while she writhed beneath him, pressing her lower body up against stomach to seek some relief. It was torturous, what he was doing to her. "Daryl, stop."

He froze, his head bent between her breasts, his muscles tense.

"No, I don't mean _stop_ ," she said frantically. "I mean move. Roll over." She pushed against the white cotton on his shoulder, and he let himself fall onto his back. Carol mounted him, pushing the burning heat between her legs into his erection, and he groaned. She bent down to him and swallowed the groan with her mouth.

Carol wasn't entirely sure what happened next. She wasn't used to being either in control of a man or out of control of herself, but, at the moment, she was _both_. She was calling the shots but calling them with a confused abandon, telling Daryl to move his hand first here and then there, to kiss one place and then another, grinding against him for some relief. "Did you get the condoms?" Her question was almost a moan.

"Aw hell..." he muttered. "Didn't think ya was gonna wanna so soon. You said - "

Carol seized his hand and plunged it beneath the waistbands of her pajamas and underwear. "Touch me. Please, please touch me."

His hand between her legs, he rolled her onto her back and murmured in her ear, "Show me how ya like it."

She slid her hand over his and guided him, until she lost the ability to think, and then he took over, his fingers chasing her pleasure while his teeth nipped at her neck and ears and she bucked beneath him.

Carol was embarrassed by the noises she made when she came, hard and trembling against his hand, and she buried them in his shoulder.

[*]

Daryl slid his hand slowly out of her pajama pants. It was pure reflex when he sucked each of his wet fingers one by one. The taste of her on his own fingers made his erection pulse. He stopped when he noticed her, still breathing hard, watching him with fascination.

" 'S good?" he asked.

She laughed. "Is this what it's supposed to feel like?"

"What?"

"I don't think…" She paused to catch her breath. "I think maybe I've never had a _real_ orgasm before."

Daryl was hit with a jumbled wave of sadness and pride, but both feelings were eclipsed by the painful ache in his groin. He settled on his side, kissed her forehead, and ever so slightly rubbed against her hip, to remind her that he hadn't had his turn yet. He wasn't dare going to _ask_ for it though.

Carol took the hint. She rolled to her side and kissed him with a hand flat on his chest, and then she slid it down, wrapped the end of one of his drawstrings around her fingertip, and slowly pulled it loose. But then, instead of dipping her hand into his pants, she dipped it into her own. He watched with confused arousal as she touched herself, and only realized why she'd been doing when her hand came out wet with her own juices and _then_ she slid it into his pants. He bent his head against her neck and groaned when she began to stroke him.

This was the time when he would normally think of boring things to hold off, but he could only think of the way she'd shuddered and whimpered beneath his touch, of the taste of her on his fingers, of the feel of her soft, warm hand on his hardened cock. He exploded with a mutter of "Sorry, sorry, sorry!"

"Shhh..." She rested her sticky hand against his bare hip and pressed her forehead to his while he struggled to regain his breath. "That's what I was _trying_ to do to you, you know?"

He tried to say yes, but some unrecognizable sound came out of his mouth instead.

[*]

Carol washed up in the bathroom, changed her underwear, and crawled back into bed, by which time Daryl seemed to be breathing normally again. He left and came back wearing the last pair of clean cargo pants. She wondered if he ever slept in just boxers.

Still looking a little stunned, he settled in under the covers on his back. She lay her head on his chest and curled one leg between the two of his. His hand rested lightly on the small of her back.

"Did you just wear those sweat pants because you were hoping to fool around?" she asked.

"No."

He said it so fast that she knew he was lying. She chuckled. "They _are_ easy access."

"Listen…uh…I ain't usually that fast. I can last longer. Swear. "

"Okay."

"Can. Really. When I's in ya, I'll think of boring shit."

" _What?_ "

He closed his eyes and winced. "Just mean I'm gonna make sure ya get yers first. Ain't gonna go off like that on ya."

She kissed his chest through the crisp new t-shirt. "Guess we'll find out," she teased.

His fingertips curled on her back. "Yeah?"

"Sometime. I'm not saying for sure it's happening _tomorrow_." Of course, she wasn't entirely ruling out the possibility, either. She hadn't been expecting what happened tonight to happen. "But bring up some condoms from the big cabin. Just in case."

"A'ight. What kind ya want?"

"There are different _kinds_?" she asked. Ed had never used condoms. Neither had her first boyfriend. He'd promised to pull out. He hadn't, but, fortunately, she hadn't ended up an unwed teenage mother.

"Mhmm."

"What kinds are there?" she asked.

"T-Dog cleaned out the whole damn shelf. So, probably got 'em all. Dunno. Ribbed, unribbed, lubricated, unlubricated, flavored - "

Carol tried to trap her laugh behind her lips, but she couldn't, and she ended up making a sound like she was sputtering soda out of her mouth. "Sorry," she said. "Why would you need them flavored?"

"Well, for if...ya know..." She could actually feel him growing hotter. "If'n ya wanna put yer mouth on it."

"If I'm just giving you a blow job, why do I need a condom?"

"Ya don't. 'Cause I ain't got nothin' bad."

"Good, because I'd rather be tasting you."

Daryl grew very still. She could sense his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed.

Carol yawned. "I don't care what kind you get. Just bring up a box of something." Her eyelids fell closed and she snuggled into his warmth. She knew she wasn't going to be able to stay awake much longer. "Goodnight, Daryl. Will you wait until I fall asleep to move to the floor?"

If he answered, she didn't hear him, because she was already fading away.

[*]

The sun filtering through the slats of the shutters assaulted Daryl's eyes. He masked them with the back of his hand, blinked, and for a confused minute, didn't understand where he was. He was still in bed. In Carol's bed. He'd slept all night in a soft bed.

Daryl rolled over to find Carol still sleeping beside him. He eased out of bed very slowly, careful not to disturb her, and crept out of the bedroom to make his way to the kitchen. In the movies and television shows, when a man got laid, he usually made breakfast for the woman the next morning. Daryl hadn't exactly gotten laid. He'd gotten a quick hand job, but seeing as it was the most explosive hand job of his life, he thought Carol deserved a pretty damn good breakfast. Unfortunately, the only thing he knew how to make was instant grits. And coffee.

He was waiting for the kettle to boil when Sophia came out of her room rubbing her eyes. She had on blue, flannel pajamas coated with baseball bats, balls, and gloves. The boy who'd had that room before her must have been about her size. "Mornin', Soph."

"Good morning." Sophia went to the pantry, pulled out one of the cans of V8 he'd picked up at the convenience store, plopped down at the kitchen table. She rested her cane against and empty chair and popped the tab of the juice can. He didn't know how she could stand that stuff, but he was glad she was getting her vitamins. "I came out last night for some water and you weren't in the living room," she said.

"Uh... Yeah. Uh…slept on yer mama's floor again 'cause she's scared."

"How come you didn't use your sleeping bag then?" She pointed to the wall by the fireplace, where the sleeping bag had been rolled and untouched since yesterday morning.

"Uh…umm...well…." The kettle whistled shrilly and he grabbed it off the stove. "Hey, uh, ya want to help me make yer mama grits?"

"Why are _you_ making breakfast?" Sophia asked.

"Uh…I...well…I...uh…"

Sophia shook her head, stood from the kitchen table, and limped her way over without her cane. She shouldered his arm playfully. "Move over, Elmer Fudd. Let me take care of this."

[*]

Carol was surprised to find breakfast waiting for her on the table when she finally dragged herself out of bed – grits that were a little over-salted and coffee that was almost sludge. She choked it all down with a smile.

When Sophia had gone back to her room to get dressed, Carol thanked Daryl for cooking.

"Sophia made the grits," he admitted. "Seem kind of salty to ya?"

"I think she used a tablespoon instead of a teaspoon," Carol said. "It's not the first time she's done it. But she'll figure it out. With the exercise I get around here, I don't think I have to worry about my blood pressure."

His tongue jutted out between his lips for a brief second, in a smile Carol had not seen coming. "Got some good exercise last night." Apparently embarrassed by his own first attempt at sexual teasing, he stood abruptly and quickly gathered the bowls and brought them to the sink.

Carol walked behind him with her coffee cup and trailed a hand across the small of his back as she set the cup down against the stainless steel. She kissed his partially bare shoulder. "I _liked_ my work-out." She turned on the water.

He stepped aside so she could begin washing the dishes. "Hey, what'm I s'posed to tell Sophia?"

"About what?" Carol asked.

"When she asks what I's doin' in yer room."

"Well, don't tell her you were finger banging me."

Carol laughed at Daryl's stunned expression. Then she continued to laugh at her own uncharacteristic word choice. Or maybe she was laughing at this strange new sense of liberation. It was freeing to be able to say things the old Carol never would have dared say, even if they were expressions the new Carol didn't much like either. It was just the fact that she _could_ say such things that made her want to say them. Carol gained control of herself, her laugh dying to a snicker and then falling into a smile as she cleaned. "I'll handle it," she told him. "I'll let her know we're sharing a bed from now on because it's so big and it doesn't make sense for you to sleep on the floor in the living room."

"We's sharin' it from now on?"

"That doesn't mean we're fooling around _every_ night," she warned him. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, and he still looked stunned. That was when it occurred to her that maybe he didn't _want_ to share her bed from now on. Her confidence burst like a water balloon rammed down against a spike, all the old insecurities spilling out in a flood. "I mean, if you want," she muttered. "Until you get tired of me." She shut off the water roughly and put the bowls on the drying rack.

"Ain't gonna get tired of ya, Carol."

She smiled faintly. "Yeah. Why not?"

"'Cause….I…I ain't." He bent and kissed her shoulder, the way she'd done to him earlier, and then scurried away.


	49. A Monster in the Dark

Daryl snuck into the big cabin late that morning and made his way to the vanity Darlene had told him about. At first, he started reading the boxes, trying to find those ones that said _Her Pleasure,_ but when he heard someone coming inside the cabin, he just grabbed a box blindly and shoved it in his backpack.

When he came out of the bathroom, T-Dog was in the hallway, grinning. "Needed some supplies?" he asked.

"None of yer goddamn bidness!" Daryl growled and pushed past him.

"Well, _someone's_ tense and seriously needs to get laid," T-Dog called after him.

When Daryl got back to the little cabin with his backpack slung over one shoulder, Carol was doing the wash on the porch in a big, ten-gallon tub she'd filled with cold water from the pump, hot water from the kettle, and some kind of soap. They had a clothesline between two trees out back, and in one of the cabins, she'd found an old-fashioned washboard.

"Hey," he said, pausing on the porch. "Thanks for doin' that."

Her eyes twinkled. "I guess I see what I have to do to get a thank you around here."

He flushed and ducked his head. Carol chuckled and went back to scrubbing. He watched her lean arms stretch out and her hands dunk beneath the soapy water and couldn't stop imaging them moving up and down that way over his - "Fuck."

Carol stopped and looked up. "What?"

"What?" he asked.

"Something wrong?"

"Nah why?"

"You just dropped an f-bomb."

"Did?"

"You all right, Daryl?" she asked, smiling slightly.

"Umm…yeah." He nodded. "Acorns."

"What?"

"Acorns," he repeated as he went inside the cabin. "Gotta get acorns."

[*]

"We're not going to _eat_ these are we?" Sophia asked as she looked down in the half full bucket of acorns she'd helped gather.

Gathering acorns was slower with a limping child to "help," but Daryl thought Sophia might want to feel useful. He had her bring a sand shovel from the covered sandbox in the park to scoop them up and spill them into the bucket.

"Nah," he told her. "They's for the deer. Gonna hold onto 'em 'til the first freeze, when they's hard to find. Then I's gonna lay 'em out somewhere's."

"Like bait?" she asked.

"Yeah. _Exactly_. Deer come and eat 'em and - "

"-Woosh!" Sophia exclaimed.

Daryl smiled. "Yeah. Woosh."

"Dinner." She grinned, and he hand an urge to reach out and pet her head like a puppy's, but he didn't.

"Dinner," he agreed. "Gonna have to wash our scent off 'em. Then when I put 'em out again, gonna have to wear gloves."

"Can I help you hunt?"

"Don't think yer in a condition to hunt."

She frowned. "Even people in wheelchairs hunt."

"Uh…Dunno 'bout that. And ya got to learn to shoot better."

"Zach's teaching me and Carl. I hit the target yesterday." She shrugged. "Well, in the black."

"Well, that's better than ya was doin'." She'd been downright afraid of the gun for the first few weeks. "And, hey, yer helpin' now." He pointed to a tree a few feet away, which had let loose a torrent of acorns sometime in the night. "Get those un's over there."

[*]

"Venison again?" Carl Grimes grumbled at dinner time.

"It was a big deer," Rick told him. "Now say thank you to Carol for cooking it."

"Thank you, Ms. Carol," Carl answered. The boy had called her Mrs. Peletier before Ed died, and for a little while after, though he'd always pronounced it wrong. But for weeks now, she'd been Ms. Carol. She liked it. She liked being her own person.

"And to Daryl for killing it," Rick said.

"Thank you, Mr. Dixon."

"We're only going to be able to get one more day out of this anyway," Carol said. "Before it spoils, even in that cooler we made of the freezer."

"What will you hunt next?" Sophia asked Daryl.

"Bear."

"That sounds dangerous," Carol said.

Andrea cut her venison sausage. "No more dangerous than walkers, I'm sure."

"Nah. Hell of a lot more dangerous than walkers," Daryl told her, which did not reassure Carol one bit.

"Why don't you bag us some grouse?" Carol asked. "Those were pretty good."

Daryl picked up his venison sausage with his fingers, instead of cutting off bites like everyone else, and took a chunk out of it. His mouth still full, he said, "Ya said it was gamey."

"Well, I think if I soak it in a marinade, I can make it less gamey."

"Huntin' bear," Daryl insisted. "Day after the run. Might take two days."

"Then it'll be vegetable rice casserole one day," Carol said.

"What does bear taste like?" Glenn asked.

"Bear's last meal," Daryl answered.

T-Dog shook his head. "Well then let's hope its last meal wasn't a walker."

Daryl stopped chewing. "Shit. Didn't even think of that."

"Yeah," Darlene said, "maybe we shouldn't eat carnivores or scavengers."

Glenn looked a little sick to his stomach. He put down his fork. "Can you _get_ it that way?"

"I don't know," Maggie said. "But I wouldn't risk it."

"Guess you're hunting grouse, then," Carol told Daryl with a smile.

[*]

That night, Daryl moved his few things into Carol's bedroom. He took over the man's tall dresser, since she'd already claimed the long one. He made the top drawer his junk drawer and threw in the stray bullets from his pockets, a couple of extra loaded magazine, his extra knives, the hand and foot warmers he planned to use to hunt in winter, and a jar of toothpicks.

He set his backpack down by his side of the bed. The box of condoms was in the top pouch. He thought he should have them within reaching distance, just in case something should happen tonight. Not that he'd been thinking about it, or hoping for it, or imagining it all day long. But…just in case.

When he came back out of the room, Carol had his tea ready, and they settled in their usual spots. "I think you and Rick should really take a third on this run tomorrow," she said. "For safety."

"Takin' Zach."

"Really?" Carol raised an eyebrow. "I thought you couldn't stand him."

"Kid can shoot."

Carol sipped and smiled. "Admit it, you just don't want to leave him away from your watchful eye with Beth for a day."

"Well none of y'all seem the least bit concerned he's tryin' to seduce her."

"Why do _you_? Why are you so protective of her?"

Daryl fingered the stem of his mug. "Dunno. Feel guilty I guess. My fault her daddy died. If'n I hadn't drawn Negan to that farm..."

"So you feel like if you couldn't save her whole family from Negan, then you should at least save her from _Zach_?" Carol asked.

"Sounds kind of stupid when ya put it like that."

"Because it is," Carol told him. "But what's even more stupid is you blaming yourself for what happened. None of it was your fault, Daryl. Negan may have found them anyway. Or if he didn't, someone else bad would have eventually, and you wouldn't have been there to fight. You saved Beth and Maggie, and you brought them to a safe place here. And you are _not_ responsible for another man's crimes."

Daryl sipped his tea and said nothing.

"You know that, right?"

"Mhmhm."

Carol sighed. She crossed her legs. "And Zach and Beth are going to happen, so - _relax_. He's a good kid. He calls me _ma'am._ "

"Damn frat boy. Other frat boy's he's with got so damn drunk they just walked into the walkers."

She shrugged. "Maybe he _was_ a frat boy. But around here, he's helping with the smokehouse, teaching the kids to shoot, teaching them math, and I haven't seen him have a drink, except that one bottle of wine we all shared tonight." They'd each gotten three ounces. "Speaking of which, check if there's wine in the biker church. For communion."

"Won't be. Use grape juice. Too many ex-alcoholics."

"Then get the grape juice." She drained her tea and set it on the coffee table. "Should we go to bed?"

[*]

 _Observant._

Three syllables.

A big word for Daryl Dixon, Andrea had once said, but he _was_ observant.

And he observed that Carol locked the bedroom door behind herself as he crawled under the covers in his cargo pants and muscle shirt.

He observed that she wasn't wearing those pink bunny flannel pajamas tonight, but instead a pair of sweatpants. How had she described his sweat pants last night? Easy access.

And he observed that she turned the oil lamp _all_ the way off after she crawled into bed, as though she wanted a dark blanket of privacy. A haze of starlight sifted through the sieve of the shutters and bathed her sweet face in faint shadows of light when she turned to him.

He observed that she slid up very close, until they were pressed chest to chest, and he observed that there was no bra beneath the thin fabric of her tightly fitting tank top.

After that, he stopped observing.

A fog of desire clouded his mind. Daryl didn't know what happened next. He just knew that hands were moving, lips were moving, and breath was getting lost between the sighs and moans. Clothes were coming off. Her shirt. His shirt. Her sweat pants. His cargo pants. Her panties. His boxers. Suddenly he was, for the first time in his life, completely naked with a woman.

And it didn't shame him at all.

He didn't think of the deformed skin on his back, where his father's angry lashes had cut permanent scars. He didn't think of the cigarette burns above Carol's breasts, where Ed had punished her for some imagined infraction. He didn't think of the dirt that never seemed to quite wash all the way out of the tanned skin of his own arms. He thought only of the beautiful feel of her – skin on skin, mouth on skin, body on body, and – the most intoxicating sound of all – his name on her lips: "Daryl, oh, Daryl …"

"Oh sweet holy – "

"Daryl, get the condom. Now!"

In the darkness, his hand fumbled against his backpack. The zipper came open with a loud rasp. He rummaged inside for the box of condoms and tore it open so violently that the individual foil packets scattered across the floor. He lunged over the side of the bed and snatched up one, which he ripped open with his teeth. Beneath the sheets, he slid the condom out of the packaging and rolled it hurriedly onto his throbbing erection.

Somehow, the sheets had gotten tangled between them, separating their two heated bodies. Carol seized the edge of the sheet and yanked it off them both, the fabric wooshing like a bullfighter's cape, and the soothing fall air struck his already perspiring skin.

Daryl jumped as a glowing, unholy, neon green saber-like light shined suddenly in the darkness.

"What the hell!" Carol cried.

"Fuck's that?" In a world of the walking dead, his first thought was of something dangerous and supernatural, and he instinctively reached for his handgun on the top of the nightstand. Daryl slammed his palm down against the wood, and the nightstand shook. Groping in the darkness, he curled his hand around the raised beads of the gun's grip.

"Stop!" Carol yelled. "It's you!" And then she burst out laughing.

Daryl's fingers unfurled from the gun. He blinked. The glowing thing, which had been standing upward, was beginning bit by bit to droop.

"It's the condom," Carol said through a titter of laughter. "It must be glow in the dark."

"Who the fuck buys glow-in-the-dark condoms!" Daryl shouted.

"Shh!" Carol said, the admonition coming out more like _shhh-ha-shhh-ha—shhh-ha-ha!_ "You'll wake Sophia."

"Fuckin' neon goddamn what the fuck?"

"You picked it!" Carol was covering her mouth now. Her breasts were heaving with her laughter. They'd been sexy as hell when they were heaving beneath him a moment ago, but that wasn't sexy now. She dropped her hand. "When I said get whatever you want, I had no idea…." She shook her head and started laughing again.

"Didn't know what they was! Didn't see that on the damn box!"

Carol's giggles overtook her, and she threw herself onto her back and sent her laughter up to the ceiling.

The door rattled in its frame and Sophia's confused, frightened voice came through the other side. "Mama? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine honey! Mr. Dixon just told me a very funny joke! Go back to bed!"

"Who was he yelling at?" Sophia asked nervously.

"Not yer mama!" Daryl insisted, terrified Sophia would think he was like her father, angry and gearing up to beat her mother. Then lower, to Carol, he said, "Ya better go to 'er. Show yer a'ight."

Carol's quickly pulled on her sweat pants without her underwear and threw on her shirt.

[*]

Sophia was worried Carol and Daryl had been having a fight. As Carol raised the blanket up to her chin, she said, "We weren't fighting, sweetheart. Did you ever hear me laugh when I fought with your father?"

Sophia shook her head. "Never really heard you laugh with him at all."

Carol nodded sadly.

"But why were only _you_ laughing?"

"You know Mr. Dixon doesn't laugh much."

"He's a quiet laugher," Sophia agreed. "He laughs on the inside."

"Exactly." Carol bent down and kissed her daughter's forehead. "Daryl's a good man," she told Sophia. "He wouldn't hurt me or you. But I want you to know, if he ever _did_ raise a hand to either of us, even once, he'd be out of this cabin. Or we would. I want you to know that. I won't tolerate that again the way I did with your daddy. You're my first priority. I won't ever put up with a man who doesn't treat you well."

"I like Daryl. Mr. Dixon."

"I know you do, sweetie."

"Do _you_ like him?"

"Of course I do," Carol told her.

"No, I mean…do you _like him_ like him?"

"I do," Carol admitted. It was going to be increasingly hard to hide that fact from her daughter. "But _you're_ my first priority."

Sophia shrugged. "It's chill."

"Chill?"

"That's what Zach says."

Carol chuckled.

"Zach's cute."

"Zach's almost twenty, Sophia."

"I know," Sophia told her. "And he likes Beth. Geez, can't a girl just notice?"

A laugh sputtered from Carol's lips. "I suppose."

"Do you think Daryl's cute?"

"Very cute," Carol told her. "Now you get some sleep."

She made sure Sophia was settled and warm and feeling secure before she made her way back to the bedroom. When she came in and set the kerosene lamp on the nightstand, Daryl was sitting up against the headboard. He had his clothes back on. The condom was still glowing, but in the wastebasket by her nightstand now, and it was less obvious because the room was now partially lit.

She slipped quickly under the sheet and comforter. Not being in the midst of hot and heavy foreplay anymore, she was cold. "I'm not sure I want whatever chemical is needed to make those glow inside of me," Carol told him.

Daryl's jaw formed a tight, angry line. "Don't blame ya."

She smiled. "We could just fool around like we did last night."

"Ya even in the mood anymore?" he asked.

"Honestly, no. I don't think you are either."

The noise coming from his throat sounded a bit like something a sullen panther might make.

"Don't be so disgruntled. They'll be other chances." She reached over and squeezed his now canvas-clad knee. "I promise."

"Ain't disgruntled."

"Well, you're very far from being gruntled."

"That ain't even a word."

She laughed.

His stern demeanor cracked. He smiled slightly and ducked his head. "Almost shot my own damn dick off."

"I, for one, am very glad you didn't. Because I plan make good use of that in the future."

"Yeah?" He smiled a little more now.

"Yeah. When you get back from that supply run. But we've got to get some non-glow-in-the-dark condoms. Maybe let _me_ go get the condoms from the big cabin this time."

"Good idea." He sighed heavily.

"Spoon with me?" she asked.

"Mhmmhm."

She turned the oil lamp off and eased back into his embrace.

"Don't tell no one 'bout this," he muttered.

She chuckled. "It's such a good story, though."

"Don't!"

"Oh fine."

He was quiet for a while, his muscles a little tense, but his flesh warm. "Up until then…was it a'ight? For ya?"

"I was enjoying myself. I thought that was obvious enough."

"Weren't too…rough?"

"No." She ran a fingertip over the hairs of his arm. "I'm sorry if that first night I made you feel rejected. I didn't mean to. I just…I wasn't quite ready."

" ' S aight."

"I like that you ask me what I like."

"Don't wanna just fuck ya, Carol. But I ain't never… _made love_."

"I'm not sure I ever have either. I mean, I'm not sure I've ever really loved anyone before."

"'Fore?" he asked.

"Before….you."

He was deadly quiet, and Carol wished she hadn't admitted that aloud. "You don't have to say it back. It's okay if you don't feel that way."

"Why the fuck ya think I wanna make love to ya?"

Carol snorted. She was laughing at the pure _Darylness_ of his confession and at her own self-doubt. She was laughing in joy at the fact that he _did_ love her. She turned in his arms and kissed him. "I'm a mess, aren't I? And so are you."

"Mhmhm. Might as well be a mess together." He pressed his forehead against hers. They lay like that for a while, until she kissed him, said goodnight, and turned and pressed her back to him. In the strength of his embrace, she drifted off to sleep.


	50. First Time

Daryl awoke at the first hint of sunrise, to the feel of Carol's fingertips caressing his stubble. He opened his eyes to her smile. "Mornin'," he drew.

"Promise to be careful on this run."

"Mhmhm. Want anythin' special?"

"Mint chocolate chip ice cream."

"See what I can do."

She chuckled. "What was your favorite flavor, in the old world?"

"Vanilla."

"That's good to hear. It means you're easy to please."

He pulled her a bit closer. They kissed, softly at first, but the kisses grew gradually deeper and more urgent. Daryl kept his eyes closed, and was surprised by the feel of her cool fingertips beneath his shirt. If _she_ was doing it, he supposed _he_ could do it. He inched his fingers beneath her tank top, feathered them over her stomach and up, until he paused with a hand just below her breast. "'S a'ight?"

She shifted, like she had before, until his hand was on the soft mound of her breast. He toyed gently, enjoying the feel of her bare flesh, the pert firmness of her breasts, and the little shiver that ran through her body as he touched her. "Ya like this?" Her answer was a whimper that made his cock pulse. He trailed his lips to her ear. "N' this?" He rolled her hardening nipple lightly between his fingers.

She pushed her lower body into his growing erection and whispered, "Please."

No woman had ever asked him _please_ before. They'd said _fuck me_ , or _take me_ , or _hell yes_ , but never _please._ He stilled his hand just because he wanted to hear her say it again.

"Please," she whimpered.

His fingers went to work again. "Ya like?"

"Mhmhm….do you?"

"Love playin' with yer tits." Daryl bit down hard on his bottom lip. _Shit._ He'd probably ruined the mood with that. He didn't know what a man who was _making love_ was supposed to say, but it probably wasn't _tits._

"Don't stop. Please."

He hadn't realized his hands had grown still again. She pushed into him when he continued his attention to her breasts. "Don't stop," she pleaded again.

"Didn't."

"I mean…don't stop talking."

Talking? What the hell was he supposed to _talk_ about? He suddenly couldn't think of a single word at all. So he kissed her instead. He explored her mouth with his tongue. That seemed to satisfy her for a while, until she pulled her lips free of his mouth, trailed them to his ear, and nibbled his earlobe.

It was just a damn earlobe. He had no idea why her teeth on it should make him throb. " _Sweet Jesus oh hell yeah like that_ ," he muttered. The words spilled out without thought or control.

Carol's lips curved into a smile against his ear. "Now you're talking." She went back to assaulting his ear. Between nibbles and nips she whispered into it. "I like your voice. It makes me wet."

"Yeah?"

"Mhmm…"

Hell, Darlene was wrong. He didn't need no damn Van Morrison music. _His_ voice made her _wet_. "Yeah?" Fuck. He needed more words. He needed words _fast._ Where were the goddamn words?

"See?" She took his hand and guided it inside her sweat pants and between her legs.

He groaned. " _Damn._ You are wet, you good girl." And, just like, that, there were the words. He didn't know if they were the right words. But they must have been good enough, because she was grinding against his hand now. "Want me to fingerbang ya?"

She bent her head into his neck and laughed.

What was so funny? That was the word she'd used yesterday morning, wasn't it? He felt suddenly embarrassed, but then her laugh died and she looked at him earnestly, her blue eyes soft with affection and desire. "Yes." She guided his fingers into motion and then let go.

He teased her at first before settling on the sweet spot. He'd never watched a woman while he was satisfying her before. He loved the way Carol sucked her bottom lip under her top lip, closed her eyes tight, and whimpered beneath his touch.

"Ya like?" he asked, mainly because he wanted to hear her say yes.

Her eyes fluttered open. "Yes." Soon her yes became a "please yes," and then her please yes became a "God yes," and when he murmured, "Mhmmm...Carol. Ya like that, don't ya, ya good girl?" her God yes became an " _Oh_ God yes" and then that became "Daryl, oh, Daryl yes, yes, _please_ …." Until at last she was trembling and shuddering and groaning into his shoulder.

[*]

Daryl kept touching her after she came. She was too sensitive. It was a delightful torture, but it was still a torture. Carol seized his hand and jerked it out of her sweatpants. "Your turn now," she said and fumbled with his pants to help him shimmy out of them. "What do you want this time?" she asked, meaning she was willing to touch him or take him in her mouth, but he pressed his erection against her sweat-pant-clad thigh. "Wanna be in ya."

The gravelly sound of his voice sent a tingle through her entire body. "Get a condom. It won't glow now that it's light. And it has to be safe or they wouldn't make them. I don't care. Just get it."

He didn't argue. He scurried for a packet, tore it open, and then lay on his back to roll it on.

"Let me," she said. She wanted to see and feel him. He was blushing when Carol slowly slid the sheet off of him, but he certainly had no reason to be. He was perfect to her.

He closed his eyes and groaned at her touch as she worked the condom on. His eyes were still closed when she shimmied out of her sweats and panties and mounted him. As she eased herself slowly on, he let out a satisfied growl. "Fuck ya feel good."

"Open your eyes, Daryl. Please."

Daryl did, though he let them fall on the fabric of her tank top as it clung to her breasts. "Take off yer shirt," he ordered, and tugged on the tail of it. As if as an afterthought, he added, "Please."

She pulled it over her head and blushed beneath his appreciative gaze. Carol whimpered and bit her bottom lip when he sat up with her, cupped a breast, and began kneading it. Though she'd been the one to mount him like this, she felt suddenly shy. She needed him on top this first time, in charge.

The realization hit her with a sudden rush of power that she could just _ask_ for it. She wrapped her arms around his neck. "I want to be under you."

He flipped her suddenly onto her back and plunged back into her with a groan. She matched his rhythm when he began to thrust.

Carol had no idea whether or not Daryl thought of "boring shit" as he had promised to do. She only knew that every time he seemed close to exploding, he stilled, and that his stillness sent her into a panicked pleading. Every time he did it, Carol jerked her hips and cried "please, please, please..." until he began to move again. She also knew she came before he did, crying his name and tugging with two hands on the strands of his hair while wave after wave broke over her.

She was so caught up in the aftermath of the last wave of her own pleasure that she didn't know he was coming until his hot breath and deep voice filled her ear with "Carol, Carol, gooooooood girl!" And then he collapsed, panting, on top of her.

They lay together for a moment, their breaths echoing each other in a chorused rhythm until they leveled. When Daryl slid out of her, he captured the condom, rolled over, tossed it in the trash, and then landed on his back. Looking stunned, he stared up at the ceiling. She began sliding up his white cotton of his undershirt. "It's not fair you still have something on. Will you take it off, please?"

"Ain't pretty."

"I know about the scars. I don't care."

He swallowed, but then he sat up and shed the shirt. The sight of his old scars neither repulsed her nor made her sad. Instead, they made her feel strangely closer to him. When he lay back down, she cuddled up against him, her head on his bare, muscular chest, which was slick with sweat form their lovemaking. "Am I the only woman you've let see your scars?" she asked, her finger lightly tracing a line that wound its way from his back across his front. His father must have used a switch that curved.

"Yer the only one." From the way he was saying those words, she thought maybe he was answering a question she hadn't quite asked. "Carol, yer the _only_ one."

[*]

They finally got out of bed and dressed a half hour later when they heard the kettle whistling. Daryl packed up his backpack and thanked Sophia for the obviously too weak coffee she had made him. He took a sip from the travel mug and gave the girl a thumbs up, which made Carol's heart patter. "Ya want anythin' from the run, Soph?"

"If you're going to that biker church, can you bring home a hymnal?"

"Ain't sure they's got hymnals," he answered.

"Or some music sheets. Whatever. I want to play something new on that piano in the cabin below the big cabin, but they don't have any music sheets."

Daryl nodded. "Yeah. Didn't know ya played."

"My mom taught me."

Daryl turned his eyes to Carol and blinked. "Didn't know _you_ played."

Carol shrugged. "A little. We had a piano when I was growing up. I inherited it, but… Ed sold it. So I taught Sophia on this piano the local church had in its fellowship hall." She followed Daryl out the cabin and onto the porch to kiss him goodbye. "Be careful," she told him again.

Carol watched Daryl walk down the porch stairs and toward the pick-up where Rick was already loading two rifles into the back seat. There was a swagger in his step. There was _always_ a swagger in Daryl's step, but this one was less something-to-prove and more _genuinely_ confident than usual.

Carol smiled to think that she'd _put_ that swagger there.

[*]

Daryl settled his crossbow into the back seat with the rifles. Zach tossed his backpack in the bed of the pick-up as Beth approached him. "Hey," he said. "I was just going to come find you."

While Rick slid into the front seat, Zach and Beth kissed. It didn't look like it was their first kiss.

"I figured I needed to step up," Zach said when Beth pulled away. "Help out. Go on this run. I wanted to make sure I saw you before I left."

Zach was talking as if he was getting ready to go off to World War II, instead of on a supply run that should be over in eight to ten hours. Daryl thought he was trying a little too hard to impress Beth. It didn't work. "Okay," she said casually.

"'Cause, you know, it's _dangerous_ ," Zach said.

Beth laughed. "I know." She kissed his cheek and walked off.

"Okay…" Zach called after her, "So are you going to say goodbye?"

"Nope!" she called back.

"Like a dang romance novel," Daryl muttered. "Get in the truck."

When Zach reached for the front passenger's door, Daryl said, "In the _back_ , Romeo."

Zach released the door handle held up both hands, and said, "Fine." He crawled into the backseat next to the weapons.

Daryl took shotgun while Rick started the pick-up and slid in a CD. "Don't," Daryl said.

Rick pressed play.

"Don't."

Annoying music streamed out of the speakers, and Rick began snapping his fingers.

"Please don't," Daryl said, with no real hope Rick would listen.

"What _is_ this?" Zach asked from the backseat as they headed down the mountain. "Like, 40s country or something?"

"Young man," Rick replied. "You have _no_ taste."

[*]

The CD got stuck on the second song and wouldn't stop skipping, which meant they were now nearing the camp store in glorious silence. Well, they _would_ have been, if Zach weren't still trying to guess Daryl's former profession.

"You're in some kind of position of leadership here," Zach said, "I mean, you're not in charge, clearly, but people seem to take you seriously. You're able to track. You're helping people, but you're still kind of surly. I know…I've got this now…Homicide cop!"

Rick laughed.

"What's so damn funny?" Daryl asked him.

"Nothing. I already told you once I could have used you on my squad."

"You're right," Daryl told Zach, hoping it would make him stop his guessing game. "Undercover. I mean, I don't like to talk about it, because it was a lot of heavy shit."

"You serious?" Zach asked.

Rick snorted.

"Ain't _that_ funny."

"I'm just trying to imagine you interviewing this one old lady we had to deal with," Rick said. "Her ninety-year-old husband died in his sleep. She kept insisting foul play was involved and trying to get us to investigate."

"Nah. Ya got me all wrong," Daryl said. "I'd of been sweet as molasses to 'er. I'd of told her Elvis weren't really dead and he done it."

Rick chuckled as he maneuvered around some road wreckage.

"I know!" Zach said. "You _had_ to be a high school football coach. You've got the arms of a quarterback, you're intimidating, and you can yell."

"Nah," Daryl said. "What kind of loser do you take me for? High school my ass." He shook his head. "Try _college_."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Ain't ya never heard of me? Coach Dixon?"

Rick tried to keep his laugh inside his closed lips, but it was sputtering out. It was good to see Rick laughing. Maybe a good laugh was all the man needed to stop wandering off in the woods at night.

"Fine," Zach said. "I give up. What _did_ you do?"

"Honestly?" Daryl asked, feeling like that past life no longer mattered. Not today. Not here. Not in this world, where he was – with any luck – about to find some good stuff for his girls, where he'd just _made love_ to Carol, and where Rick was laughing. "Did a dozen things. Drifted with my brother. Odd jobs, here and there."

"Like what?"

"Painted houses. Dug ditches. Stained fences. Trimmed trees. Handyman shit. Fixed cars. Windshields, mostly. Repaired bikes. Mowed lawns. Mucked stables. Sold some pot to college assholes like you."

"I've never done pot."

"Yeah, right."

"Seriously, I haven't. That shit's illegal. _Was_ illegal."

"Underage drinkin's illegal and ya did that."

"Yeah, but the coach wouldn't kick us off the rifle team for that. He would have kicked us off for pot."

"We should grow marijuana in our garden," Rick said.

"Fuck for?" Daryl asked. "Need _food_."

"For medicinal purposes."

Zach laughed.

"No, I'm serious," Rick said. "We're going to run out of painkillers and that sort of thing eventually. Marijuana has multiple uses."

"I can't believe the cop is suggesting this," Zach said.

"We ain't growin' pot," Daryl said.

Rick pulled to a stop in the gravel parking lot outside the camp store and threw the truck into park. Weapons readied, the three men crunched over the rocks. Daryl pounded on the window of the small store. They waited. A walker slammed its face against the glass from inside, and then a second. They waited awhile longer, but there were no more, so Zach held open the front door while Rick and Daryl stood ready with knives.

"Come on out!" Zach shouted. "Super's on the table. Don't be late!"

When the walkers' were slain and their fallen bodies were dragged from the doorway, the men went inside and cleared the place before looking for things to load up.

"This is like a hotel gift shop," Rick said. "In case you forgot something minor when you came to the campground."

"Lots of kiddie shit," Daryl muttered.

"Probably had scout camps near here," Rick speculated. "Carl went to one, once. He had credit at the store. They let him buy one snack from the camp store a day and a toy before he went home."

"Got some bow parts, though. 'N arrows." Daryl spilled out a box full of plastic tumbler cups and snagged up the bow supplies.

"I can't believe what they were charging for this ammo," Rick said as he shoveled the few available boxes into his backpack.

"Dumb ass who forgets to bring enough ammo is dumb ass enough to pay for it," Daryl reasoned.

Zach found a cardboard box and began loading it with soda cans, water bottles, and energy drinks from the lone refrigerator case. They scored jerky and a bunch of candy as well.

"Pink camo?" Daryl asked. "Fuck's the point of that?"

"Those are flannel pajamas," Rick said.

Daryl reached out and felt them. Thick and soft. "Carol might like 'em." He snagged a pair.

"Sexy," Zach said, smiling at the PJs in Daryl's hand.

"Fuck you lookin' at?"

Zach held up a hand and stepped back. "I'll start taking the boxes to the truck."

They made one last sweep of the store after the supplies they'd snagged were loaded, but they didn't see anything else of interest. On their way out, Daryl grabbed a pair of shades and slipped them on.

"You look like the Fonz," Rick told him.

"The Fonz didn't wear sunglasses." Daryl took them off and threw them on the ground. They didn't sit right on his nose.

"Well," Rick said, "You've got the black leather jacket and white t-shirt going."

"Who's the Fonz?" Zach asked. "Did he used to be in your camp?"

Daryl and Rick caught each other's eyes. Rick smirked.

"Yeah," Daryl said. "Back in the quarry, where we lost Joanie and Chachi."

Rick's chest heaved with his repressed laughter as he climbed in the pick-up. This run was good for the man, Daryl thought. Get his mind off of Lori.

"So where to now, brother?" Rick asked when Daryl slammed his door shut. "Biker church?"

"Eyyyy!" Daryl held two thumbs up, and Rick smiled and shook his head.


	51. A Discovery in the Diner

The biker church was in a stand-alone brick building next to a small motorcycle repair shop that had not been in the yellow pages. Wearing the sleeves Carol had made them, they scavenged the repair shop first after walking in through the wide-open garage.

"Sorry, Bob," Rick said as he pulled the blade of his knife out of the head of a walker that had been trapped inside the office.

"What the fuck ya name 'em for?" Daryl asked.

"I didn't." Rick motioned with his blood-soaked knife to the red letters spelling out Bob on a white background on the mechanic's uniform.

"Oh."

Zach stared at the calendar on the wall, which featured a stark naked, blonde-haired, buxom Miss May. "Who puts a nude calendar in a place of business?"

"My brother," Daryl said, and felt a cringe of guilt over abandoning him.

Rick was rummaging through the desk drawers and glanced up at Daryl. "Never did tell you, but….I'm glad you chose us over Merle."

"Wouldn't of _had_ to choose if ya'd let 'em stay."

"Well, I'm sorry about that Daryl. I really am. But you and I both know – "

"- Yeah," Daryl interrupted. "We's all better off without 'em. I get it now." There was no way things would have unfolded so smoothly with Merle around. Those cabins would not be a peaceful haven. Daryl would not be in Carol's bed. But the fact that he was benefiting from Merle's absence made him feel even more guilty. He soothed his own guilt by saying, "Hell, Merle's probably King of Kentucky right now."

Daryl rolled over Bob and fished the pack of cigarettes out of his back pocket. He dug through the mechanic's wallet and took out the two condom packets, too, though he wouldn't have bothered with that a week ago.

Rick pulled the center drawer of the desk all the way open. "Bob had a secret stash."

"Of drugs?" Zach asked.

"Snickers." Ten candy bars lined the very back section of the drawer.

Zach collected them into his backpack while Daryl explored a tall metal cabinet and snagged a three-quarters full bottle of Wild Turkey. The bourbon made him think of Merle again. He wondered if his brother was lying drunk and alone on the floor of some distillery right now, or if he'd found a community of rough men that would have him. Daryl shook off the thought and grabbed the half-full bottle of vodka too.

"Who drinks on the job?" Zach asked.

The trio managed to gather enough oil, coolant, and batteries to fill half of the bed of the pick-up before moving over to the church. One of the church windows appeared to have been busted through from the inside – walkers working their way _out_ , most likely. They went in through the unlocked front door, which the walkers couldn't open.

Daryl spied two donation boxes under a folding table, each about half full of canned food. It was good thinking on Carol's part to have them check here. His woman was one smart cookie. _His woman_. Daryl wondered if she would agree with the designation.

"People donate their worst stuff." Rick picked up a can of water chestnuts and showed it to Daryl, who shook his head.

Zach fished out a small blue box. "Meat in a box," he read. "Just add water and your imagination."

"Better have a lot of fuckin' imagination," Daryl muttered.

"Ramen noodles!" Zach exclaimed happily. "I used to live off this stuff my freshman year of college. Had no idea I was building my survival skills."

Beyond the foyer was an open room lined with folding chairs that faced a stage. Daryl went to the piano on the stage and collected a few books of sheet music for Sophia. The trio found the storage supply closet next, from which Rick picked up a large box of 1,000 white wafers.

"I don't know about that," Zach said. "I'd feel weird eating communion wafers like crackers."

"You won't if you're ever starving," Rick told him.

"I thought we had enough food for the winter already."

"Likely," Daryl said. "But we's gonna live past winter, ain't we?"

"And we might find more mouths to feed," Rick added. "Like we found you." Rick pointed to the words _Gluten free_ on the wafer box. "In a biker church?"

Daryl shrugged.

Zach kicked another box with his foot. "Pre-filled fellowship cups."

"They look like coffee creamers," Rick said.

"Don't knock it." Daryl squatted and picked up the box. "Five hundred shots of juice right there." He nodded to Zach. "Get the other box."

As Zach picked up the other box of pre-filled communion cups, he said, "I wonder if we can ferment these."

After loading the food, they drove on to the diner, which was about half a mile away, and approached it from behind, coming to a stop beside a single empty pick-up in the back parking lot. From here, they could see nothing but the rear cinderblock wall of the diner. They'd have to walk around front for a better view.

"Let's do a perimeter sweep to start," Rick said. "You stay by the truck, Zach. Guard our supplies. Whistle if you see anyone."

Zach nodded.

Daryl and Rick jogged to the diner. Rick indicated with motions that he would go right while Daryl went left.

When Daryl rounded the corner, he heard the familiar sound of growling that came from a crowd of walkers, and his heart sank. They wouldn't be getting get anything useful out of the diner.

"Daryl!" came Rick's loud cry from the front of the building, followed by a gunshot. "Zach! Help!"

[*]

From her perch in the treehouse watchtower, Carol could hear the sound of engines roaring up the hill. It was too early for the men to be back from the supply run already. She scoured the landscape through binoculars and saw an unfamiliar pick-up weaving into sight. An SUV followed it.

Carol was not one to curse, but she muttered an _oh shit_ as she hurried down the rope ladder and a _fuck fuck_ when she took off running toward the big cabin to warn the others, which she did with a shout when she burst through the door.

Andrea and Beth were out fishing, but everyone else was there. Glenn stayed behind to guard the kids while T-Dog, Darlene, and Maggie armed themselves quickly and followed Carol out the door. They stood behind the line of vehicles that blocked the road as the sound of the engines grew closer.

"Let's hope they're friendly," Darlene said.

[*]

When Daryl tore around the building, he found the front window completely shattered. There were walkers inside gnawing on two bodies, and more pushing in on the feasters for their own taste of blood. Still more of the creatures were crawling through the busted glass toward Rick, who kept shooting them.

"What the hell ya shootin' for!" Daryl shouted. "Back to the truck!" Those people were dead. There was no helping them. They should cut their losses and go.

Zach, panting from his run, arrived.

"There's a little boy in there!" Rick shouted. "I saw him go into the kitchen. Walkers started to go after him. I shot to draw them off." He fired again.

Zach leveled his rifle and began picking off walkers, more quickly than Rick had been doing. One eye closed, he made controlled movements left and right as he brought them down. The kid was as cool as if he was plinking cans off a fence.

With the walkers nearest the window now fallen, Daryl burst through the jagged opening. The sharp, broken edges scraped across his arms, but they were protected by Carol's sleeves. He hissed, however, when a shard drew a slash across his left cheek. His boots squished over the fallen carcasses, and he nearly tripped. The walkers on the outside of the feasting ring caught scent of him and turned. He moved quickly to the left, toward the kitchen, trusting Zach to bring the pursuers down. Zach had to have reloaded, but he must have been quick about it, because there was barely a pause in his shooting.

The gray metal door of the kitchen swung violently open when Daryl slammed his palm against it in a running lunge. He skidded to a stop across the stone tile floor. Damn if Rick wasn't right. A little curly haired black boy, not more than about three, was crying and trying to climb from the top of a closed trash can to a higher perch on an empty metal shelf. Daryl slung his crossbow onto his back and snatched the child up around the waist. If he hadn't, the kid would likely have pulled that shelf straight down on top of himself.

The boy screamed bloody hell, and Daryl remembered the sleeves. The jagged brass studs must be hurting him. He dropped the kid on its little ass onto the trash can, ripped off the sleeve from his left arm, and scooped the kid back up again. "Calm down!" he growled.

The boy bawled, but now he did it into Daryl's shoulder as he carried the tyke out of the kitchen.

[*]

The pick-up cranked to a stop several feet from the line of cars, and the SUV slammed to a halt behind it. Carol raised her binoculars for a closer look. A black couple sat in the front seat of the pick-up. The woman had been driving. In the SUV was a white man. Several locks of wavy black hair spilled out of the top of his light brown Stetson and onto his forehead. A heavy stubble lined his chin and cheeks.

"They look armed?" Maggie asked.

"The woman's reaching for a rifle," Carol answered.

The front door of the pick-up opened. Carol dropped the binoculars and put both hands on her weapon. Through the scope, the woman's head came into sight as she slid out of the pick-up with her hands up. The rifle was slung over her shoulder, but she wasn't holding it. "We're peaceful," the woman called. "We don't want a fight." The passenger's door opened, and the man came out. He was built like a football player, but was unarmed except for a hammer and knife attached to his belt.

The man in the cowboy hat remained in the SUV. His hands were out of sight below the dash.

"We just saw the tire tracks coming up this road," the big black man said, "and wanted to see if there were survivors up here."

Rick and T-Dog had taken down the sign to the cabins, but the men had made fresh tire tracks this morning. Maybe they should start raking those away for the first several feet near the base.

"What about your friend in the SUV?" Carol called. "What's he doing with his hands down there?" She thought maybe he was loading a gun.

The black woman turned and motioned for the man in the cowboy hat to come out. He did, with his hands up. Carol took a closer look at his belt through her scope. He did indeed have a handgun, but it was holstered to his left side. Another metal object was clipped to the right side of his belt, and it glinted in the sunlight. Carol studied it in confusion for a moment, wondering what sort of weapon it was, before she realized it was just a silver harmonica.

Darlene suddenly lowered her rifle. "Roscoe?" She squeezed through a space between two of the cars and started strutting toward the white man. " _Roscoe?_ Is that you?"

"Darlene?" the man shouted back. "Damn! You've grown _up_!"

Roscoe jogged forward, grabbed up Darlene in a great big bear hug, and whirled her around with a "Wooh wheee!" before setting her back on her feet. "Glad to see you alive, girl. How long's it been?"

Carol and Maggie lowered their rifles, but T-Dog watched the exchange warily over his. Their voices carried clearly in the mountain amphitheater.

"Been a long, long time," Darlene answered. "Daryl's with us."

"And Merle?" Roscoe asked.

She shook her head. "He's still alive, but they parted ways. Merle's in Kentucky, far as we know."

Roscoe tipped up his cowboy hat and scratched his forehead. " _Alone_?"

"Well, probably not anymore. You know he make friends easy."

Roscoe chuckled. "Your folks survive?"

"They been gone a long time. My mamma died soon after you left Georgia. My daddy died in the state pen a few years later."

"Sorry to hear that. How about Billy Ray Dixon?"

She shook her head. "Turned."

"And my pa?"

"Died at the start of it," Darlene told him.

Roscoe kicked at the dirt with the steel toe of his tan cowboy boots and muttered something Carol couldn't hear from behind the cars.

"So..." the large black man asked, "I guess these people are friendly then?"

Roscoe stepped away from Darlene. "Well, Darlene's friendly. Can't vouch for the rest of 'em."

Darlene turned back to the line of cars. "Come on out, y'all. Think we can trust 'em. This man's Daryl's kin."

[*]

Zach and Rick were both inside the diner now, and not a single walker was standing. There must be over twenty of them scattered on the floor. The human bodies they'd been feasting on were half consumed. All Daryl could tell was that they had once been two black men.

Zach shouldered his rifle, took the crying kid from Daryl's arm, and started bouncing him on his hip and making silly faces to calm him. Damn if that kid didn't stop crying and laugh. But then his big, brown eyes fell on the remains of his people, and he started to bawl again. Zach took him outside.

"Smell that?" Rick asked.

"Pot," Daryl replied. Its sickly sweet scent was somehow still noticeable over the stench of the walkers.

Rick looked around the floor, pushed aside one of the walker bodies with his foot, and stooped to pick up a blunt. His eyes were hard and dark when he stood.

Daryl found the second one. "They was gettin' high. With a _kid_ to take care of." Daryl bit down hard on his back teeth. He remembered being about three the first time he saw his mother get high, though he hadn't known that's what she was doing at the time. He just knew she wasn't responding to him when he tried to talk to her and that Merle had ended up making him a meal of grits and canned peaches when he got home from school. Daryl hadn't eaten all day at that point, but, after that, he learned to open cans.

Rick and Daryl looked the fallen walkers over. Three were in mechanic's uniforms. Several had on biker's vests. They'd probably worked their way up from the repair shop and church in search of food, possibly heard the men laughing, and gathered. The men had probably been too high to notice them until they were pressing on the glass, too high to protect the child or to fight back. When a big enough crowd gathered, the glass burst beneath their weight.

Daryl's eyes swept the diner. There were open cans of food on some of the tables and rolled-up sleeping bags on the booths – four in total. "Got to be at least one other person with 'em."

"Then where is he?" Rick asked.

They caught each other's eyes.

"Shit," Daryl muttered. Together, they bolted out of the building to make sure Zach wasn't dealing with a high or angry third man.


	52. News and New Friends

The newcomers sat around the dining room table eating the quick lunch of rice and vegetable soup Carol had thrown together for them. They ate greedily, as though maybe they hadn't touched food in a while. From where Carol sat at the head of the table, she could actually hear the big black man's stomach growling. He'd introduced himself as Tyreese Williams, and the woman was not his wife, but his sister Sasha. She seemed to be in charge of the trio.

Glenn was in the watchtower now, and Andrea and Beth were still out somewhere fishing, but the rest of the camp was gathered in the kitchen. The kids had talked Carol into making them hot chocolate and also sat at the dining room table. T-Dog, who was leaned back against the closed pantry door, crossed his arms over his chest. "So let me get this straight, Roscoe. Merle and Daryl's father was _your_ father?"

To Carol, Roscoe looked at least five years younger than Merle. He had blue-green eyes and near-black hair, but there was something in the Neanderthal-breadth of his forehead that reminded her of Merle.

Roscoe paused in his eating. " Same daddy, different mama. Me and Merle were born three months apart."

Carl's young brow knitted in confusion.

"It means Daryl's dad cheated on his mom," Sophia explained to him.

"Cheated in what?" Carl asked.

Sophia shook her head. "You don't know anything, do you?"

Darlene, who leaned against the nearby kitchen counter, changed the subject quickly. "So how'd Nashville work out for you, Roscoe? No one ever heard a word from you once you left Georgia."

"Got a record deal eventually. But then the label went bankrupt before I finished recording it. Ended up being a song writer. Also playin' in clubs and bars and teachin' guitar to spoiled rich kids."

"And you never thought to visit your people again?" Darlene asked.

"What people?" Roscoe asked. "My mama took off three years after I was born. Grandmama was a peach to raise me, but she died when I's seventeen. Will Dixon ain't never really acknowledged I was his. Merle just harassed me every time we saw each other, and I hardly knew Daryl. He was a kid when I left, and he was always hidin' from folks or driftin' 'round barefoot like Huck Finn."

"But you remember me?" Darlene asked.

"Yeah, well, you're hard to forget."

T-Dog glowered, but Roscoe didn't seem to notice. He just lifted his soup bowl and drank the last of it down before letting out a long "Aaaaaaah!" He set it down with a clunk and looked at Carol. "That's some damn fine cookin' on short notice. Are you married, ma'am?"

Carol smiled indulgently.

"She's with Daryl," Darlene told him.

Carol was a little taken aback by the announcement. They hadn't actually _told_ anyone they were together, but there was no surprised reaction from Maggie, who stood with her back leaned against the kitchen wall, or from T-Dog or Carl. Carol looked at Sophia, who seemed so unfazed by the comment that Carol wondered how long her daughter had simply _assumed_ they were together.

"Really now?" Roscoe looked Carol over. He shook his head and laughed. "Guess the boy's been domesticated."

"Well I don't know about that," Darlene said. "Maybe tamed a little."

"This is a nice set up you have here." Sasha looked around the kitchen. "Sturdy cabins. Running water. Wood stoves. Supplies. A look out. A barrier of vehicles."

"And we didn't see a single walker all the way up the mountain," Tyreese added.

"How did the three of you meet up?" Darlene waved a finger from Sasha to Tyrese to Roscoe. "Y'all seem an unlikely family."

"When it started," Sasha said, "Ty and I were in Jacksonville. We survived the first few weeks in our neighbor Jerry's bunker. He kept taking in people, and the food was starting to run out. One night, Jerry died and turned in his sleep, killed the others, and Ty and I barely got out alive. The whole town was overrun by that time. We started driving north, hoping to find a refugee camp."

"Instead we found Roscoe," Tyreese said with a shrug of his eyes. "Near Macon."

"Macon?" Darlene asked. "What were you doing there?"

"Fled Nashville when it started," Roscoe said. "Those blood-lickers was everywhere. Stayed in a camp near Chattanooga for a few weeks, but it fell apart. People dying, turning, fleeing. So I moved on alone. Drove down through rural Alabama. Figured better to go someplace ain't too populated. I was just scavengin' and survivin' when I heard somethin' on the radio 'bout this place called Terminus. So I cut over to Georgia."

"Terminus?" T-Dog asked. "We heard about that on the radio, too. A refugee camp, with electricity. Did you find it?"

"Oh, I found it all right."

"We were headed there when we found Roscoe," Sasha explained. "We saw the signs in south Georgia as we were heading north from Jacksonville. He told us there was nothing good in Terminus. So we all headed for Atlanta."

"What was wrong with Terminus?" Maggie asked.

Roscoe glanced at Sophia and then Carl. "Ain't really a PG story."

Carol told the kids to go play at the park, under Glenn's watch in the tree house, and they reluctantly took off.

"I could tell bad guys were in charge when I got there," Roscoe continued. "I watched from a distance for a bit. They was all armed and keepin' the people locked in cattle cars. I heard them rapin' the women." Carol felt sick and was glad she'd made Sophia leave. "I was out of ammo. Not much I could do on my own with just an empty handgun and a harmonica. So I waited until the middle of the night, when most of the men was asleep, and then I snuck in quiet as I could, past the guard, and let them people out the cattle cars. They overtook the bandits and got their guns and took the place right back over."

"Well that's good, right?" Maggie asked.

Roscoe shook his head. "I was gonna stay with 'em, but then they started talkin' crazy shit 'bout how they were never gonna let somethin' like that happen again."

"What's crazy about that?" T-Dog asked.

"Well, _how_ they were gonna do it. They decided _anyone_ who showed up - man, woman, child, good or bad - they were gonna kill 'em. And then eat 'em."

"Eat them?" Carol exclaimed.

"Continuous food supply," Roscoe said. "I ain't into murder and cannibalism myself, so I got the hell out that place 'fore they started eatin' people. Took a backpack full of food and some ammo and snuck out one night. Ran into these folks."

"So, they're eating people now?" Maggie asked.

"I reckon."

Maggie shook her head. "And you didn't try to stop them?"

"Two dozen armed people at least," Roscoe said. "Determined to kill anyone who sets foot in Terminus. That's not a shitstorm I've got an umbrella big enough to handle."

"But we spray painted over all the signs we saw on the way north," Tyreese said. "Warning: Danger."

"Well, they're still broadcasting," T-Dog told them.

"Not my rodeo." Roscoe pushed his empty bowl forward. "Not my bull."

"We just want to survive," Sasha agreed. "You've got to pick your battles in this world."

"So we headed for Atlanta," Tyreese said, "hoping the military would be in charge there, but it had been bombed."

Carol nodded. "We know."

"So we drove on northeast toward the mountains," Sasha explained. "Looking for higher ground. Hoping to find a camp with decent people. And I spied those tire tracks coming up this mountain."

"We need to start raking over those when we make supply runs," Carol mused aloud.

"So you ain't welcomin' new people?" Roscoe asked.

"Y'all can stay with us," Darlene said. She looked around at the others. "Right?"

"You took in me and Beth," Maggie said. "And Zach."

"If you want us to consider taking you in, you _have_ to contribute." T-Dog looked at Roscoe pointedly. "What _can_ you contribute?"

"Fifteen boxes of powdered milk and two jars of pickles."

"I think he means what _skills_ we can contribute," Sasha said.

They _could_ use the milk, though, Carol thought. That was one thing they _didn't_ have.

"I can play the harmonica like you wouldn't believe." Roscoe tapped the silver instrument attached to his belt. "I'm a virtuoso on the guitar. Play a mean piano, too." He shrugged. "And my fiddle's passable."

"I don't think that's what she means either, Roscoe," Sasha said with a roll of her eyes. She looked straight at T-Dog. "I'm a good shot. I can keep watch, and I can go on supply runs. Tyreese can build things."

"And I suppose you can hunt?" Carol asked Roscoe. He was a Dixon, after all.

"Can't hunt worth shit. Another reason Will Dixon never owned me. But I'm handy as hell. Can fix all sorts of things."

"I'll vouch that Roscoe is handy," Darlene said. "My mama used to hire him to repair stuff around our cabin all the time when he was in high school." She smiled at him and T-Dog frowned.

The cabin door opened and Beth and Andrea came in with four fish, which they lay on the counter.

"Y'all women can fish?" Roscoe asked. He tipped his cowboy hat at Andrea. "Are you married, ma'am?"

"Who the hell is this?" Andrea asked.

Further introductions were made and all the stories were re-told. "You were a country music singer?" Beth asked Roscoe with a hint of awe in her voice. "I always wanted to go to Nashville."

"Well you sure got the look for it, little darlin'," Roscoe said. "How old are you?"

Before Beth could answer, Maggie stepped closer to the table. "She _just_ turned seventeen. And she's got a boyfriend. He's on this supply run with Daryl and Rick. And he's an expert marksman."

"Hey, I never said Zach was my boyfriend!" Beth exclaimed. "I've known him like three days. We kissed a couple times. That does _not_ make him my _boyfriend_."

Maggie kept her eyes on Roscoe. "Seventeen," she repeated. "Barely."

"Christ, woman, just asking." Roscoe held up his hands in a self-defensive posture. "I wasn't asking for any _nefarious_ reason." He looked at Andrea. " _You_ got a boyfriend you want to threaten me with, too, sugar?"

"I don't know," Andrea said. "It depends. Are you asking for a _nefarious_ reason?"

"You want me to be?"

Andrea laughed. "In your dreams, cowboy." She nodded to his hat. "Have you ever even ridden a horse?"

"No," Roscoe admitted. "But I ate one in rural Alabama when I ran out of canned goods."

"I think we need a conference," said Carol, looking from T-Dog to Maggie to Darlene.

"Why don't I show y'all guests around outside?" Darlene suggested. The newcomers rose to follow her out.

[*]

When Rick and Daryl rounded the back of the building, a svelte, dark-skinned woman stood with the point of a curved, single-edged sword pressed lightly against the base of Zach's throat. His rifle was shouldered because he had the boy in his arms.

"Mama, mama!" the boy cried.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Rick said as he holstered his revolver.

Daryl kept his crossbow trained on the strange woman. She looked like she'd stepped straight out of a fairy tale about an African princess into a Mad Max movie and then come out the other end some combination of the two.

"If that's your boy," Rick assured her, "we aren't trying to hurt him. We just rescued him from a herd of walkers in the diner. If you'll just step back, Zach will hand him to you."

The woman drew her sword away so quickly that, for a moment, Daryl feared she'd slit the frat boy's throat, but Zach was unscathed. She slid the weapon into a sheath on her back and then gathered the child into her arms and kissed his face. The boy wrapped his little arms around her neck.

The woman turned her worried eyes on Rick. "Where are the men he was with?"

Daryl finally lowered his crossbow. Rick seemed speechless. He was probably looking for the kind of words he'd used as a cop when he broke the bad news to a victim's family. But Daryl felt no sympathy for this woman. Who the hell left a three-year-old alone with a couple of potheads in an apocalypse? "Got overrun by a herd," Daryl said coldly. "They's both dead now. But that's what happens when you get high and don't give a shit 'bout yer kid."

The woman's bottom lip trembled. Her eyes flashed fire. She shook her head and ran with the child toward the front of the building.

"Shit, man!" Rick cursed. "Why'd you tell her that? She didn't have to know they were high. Now she's going to feel guilty!"

" _Should_ feel guilty. What the fuck do you think she was out doing? Probably lookin' for more pot."

Rick jogged after the woman.

Zach followed, but Daryl made his way more languidly there. When he arrived on the scene. The woman had the child's eyes pressed to her shoulder, which was rising and falling as she tried to suppress some emotion that seemed more like anger than sorrow.

"They were smoking?" she asked, and the look in her eyes told Daryl that she hadn't expected it. That was when he noticed the walker blood staining her dark jeans. Wherever she'd been, it probably wasn't to help those men get more drugs. She'd been slashing through walkers with a purpose.

Rick nodded. "I'm sorry. When we got here, they were already..." He shook his head. "We saved the boy, though."

The woman bent her forehead against the forehead of her child.

"May I ask where you were?" Rick's voice was calm, friendly, non-accusatory. Daryl wondered if that was how he always started his interrogations when he was a cop.

The woman walked away from the diner and further into the paved front parking lot. She let her knapsack slide from her shoulder and squatted to the ground to set her son on his feet. Silently, she unzipped the pack and pulled out a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, which she set on the ground. Then she pulled out a tube of antibiotic ointment, a roll of medical tape, and, finally, gauze. "I was finding these things for my son."

She pulled off the boy's sweatshirt to reveal blood-spotted washcloths secured with duck tape across his belly. He whimpered when she peeled them off. Two gashes spread across the space below his belly button. There were also scratches on his chest and arms. "We were in a refugee camp near Atlanta, but things got bad," she said. "It started spreading. Food ran out. So we left. We've been roaming ever since. Last night, we got run off the road near this diner. Our car flipped over. Before I could get my son, he crawled out through the glass and cut himself up. We hunkered down in the diner for the night, and I left him with Mike and Terry this morning to go find something better to treat his wounds. I don't want him to get infected."

The boy whined softly as she began cleaning his cuts and scrapes and coating them with antibiotic ointment, but he didn't pull away. He was one tough little kid, Daryl thought.

"Who ran you off the road?" Rick asked. "And why?"

"Two men. I didn't pause to take down names. I just pretended to be stunned until they got close enough for me to kill them." Rick raised an eyebrow, and she said, "No one runs a family off the road just to have a nice chat with them."

"True enough," Rick said. "And then you went to the diner?"

"It was unlocked. There were six of those _things_ inside. I killed them and hauled their bodies out and burned them."

"Seen that," Daryl told Rick. "By the dumpster on the right."

"So is there still food in there?" Zach asked.

"Yes," the woman answered. "We thought we'd camp here for a while and live off of it."

"Why did _you_ go for the medical supplies?" Rick asked. "Why didn't your husband go?"

"My boyfriend. And I went because I'm much better at killing walkers."

"With that sword thing?" Rick asked.

"It's a katana. And yes. I've gotten a lot of practice killing those _things_ with it." She slid the boy's sweatshirt back on, put the medical supplies back in her pack, and gathered her son up in her arms again.

"Can you show me the car that got turned over?" Rick asked. "And the bodies of the men you killed?"

"Why?"

"So I can know if you're telling the truth. So I can decide whether or not to invite you back to our camp with us."

"And what makes you think I _want_ to join your camp?" she asked.

"You're alone with a child," Rick answered. "We have a nurse. She'll make sure those cuts don't get infected. There are several other women in our camp. Kids too. I have a son." Rick made direct eye contact with her when he said that. "He's just twelve. I know how hard it is to protect a child in this world without help. So why don't you show me the car?"

The woman nodded and began walking away from the diner.

The three men followed.again. Back after sunset. Save me some grub."


	53. Packing and Unpacking

"If Darlene trusts Roscoe, I trust him," Glenn said. They were conferring in the living room of the big cabin while Darlene kept the newcomers and kids busy outside. "Besides, he's related to Daryl."

"I don't think Roscoe's being related to Daryl is necessarily a point in his favor," Andrea said. "Has everyone forgotten Merle?"

"Roscoe doesn't seem volatile and violent like Merle," T-Dog admitted. "We might have to keep an eye on him around the women, though."

"I think we can manage to keep an eye on ourselves," Carol told him.

"So where are we going to put them?" Glenn asked. "I mean assuming they're staying? All in favor of letting them stay?" He raised his hand. So did everyone else.

"I think we should put them in the cabin below this one," Carol said. "And then move the line of vehicles down. Enlarge our camp. That cabin is small and will be easier to heat. It only has two bedrooms, but the sofa pulls out into a bed."

"That's the cabin with the piano, too," Beth said. "Roscoe will like that. Maybe he can teach me to play."

Maggie eyed her warily. "You know, he's not _actually_ a country music star."

"He recorded an album," Beth said. "In _Nashville_."

"Guys, that cabin stinks. I mean..." Glenn pinched his nose. "Literally. More than usual."

"We'll have to air it out," Carol said. "All in agreement?"

"Well, as long as Roscoe's not in _our_ cabin," T-Dog muttered as he raised his hand in agreement with the others.

"Don't be so jealous of Roscoe," Beth told him. "Just because he's good-looking and plays four instruments and has known Darlene since she was a girl doesn't mean he's going to be any competition for you."

T-Dog turned his head slowly to glare at her.

Beth giggled.

[*]

The woman, who called herself Michonne, led them a quarter of a mile to a ditch at the side of the road. A white sedan was overturned inside it, and shattered glass coated the grass. The decapitated dead men were lying half on the road and half on the shoulder.

Rick pointed to one of the swastika tattoos on the muscular forearm of a fallen body. "Skinheads, probably," he said. "They likely would have robbed, raped, and killed if they'd gotten hold of them."

Daryl glared at him. "Every man with a swastika ain't a murderer and rapist."

"You disagree?" Michonne asked. "With what I did?"

"Nah. Don't disagree ya got to kill men who run ya off the road. Don't care if they's got rainbow and unicorn tattoos. They ain't up to nothin' good."

The slain men's heads, which had rolled down to settle against one another in the ditch, had turned. The dead mouths snapped at the air. It reminded Daryl of that Hungry Hippos game he'd seen at garage sale once. He'd wanted it, but he hadn't had even the quarter they were asking.

Zach grimaced. "Their _heads_ can turn?"

"If you don't get the brain." Michonne, holding her son Andre in the crook of one arm, unsheathed her katana, walked cautiously into the ditch, and drove the point into each of the snapping heads. The little boy watched the whole process as if he was watching her squish a couple of ants on a kitchen counter.

The men followed her down. "Two steps to permanently kill," Rick said. "Seems a little inefficient."

"Beheading is safer," Michonne told him. "You can keep your distance, unlike with a knife. And there's little sound, unlike with a gun. I was just a little too busy worrying about my bleeding son to finish them off before they turned."

Daryl kicked one of the loose heads. "Damn ankle biters."

Rick looked around the scene. "Where's _their_ car then?"

"It was still running, so I took it," Michonne told him. "I used it when I went scavenging. When I spied your man with my son, I parked it a little ways back and snuck in on foot."

Rick looked at Zach with disbelief. "You didn't hear the car? You didn't see her coming?"

Zach shrugged apologetically. "I was playing patty cake."

[*]

Carol kept a hand on the butt of her holstered gun while she waited for Roscoe to open the hatch of his SUV. Meanwhile, Darlene was taking Sasha and Tyreese on a tour of the firing range. Apparently Tyreese was an awful shot and Sasha wanted him to improve.

The rear of Roscoe's SUV was scattered with sheet music, guitar picks, instruments, and fresh strings in plastic packages. It looked like he'd looted a music store, except that several of the instruments had the name _Roscoe_ engraved in black cursive on the wood. He drew out a backpack, which he slung over one shoulder, a guitar, which he slung over the other, another guitar, which he held by the neck, and a fiddle and bow.

"You kept all of your instruments through this?" Carol asked as they headed for the porch stairs.

"Not _all_ of 'em. Didn't have a weapon when it started, so I had to brain a couple blood-lickers with my Fender. Took this gun -" he nodded down to his holster " - off the blood-licker I killed with the broken neck of my Yamaha. And Sasha decided to bust up my Gibson for firewood one night."

As she opened the cabin door, Carol said, "I just assumed any Dixon would already have at least one gun at the start of this."

"Well, Will Dixon was my daddy, no doubt 'bout that. Got the birthmark to prove it." Roscoe pulled up the bottom of his button-down shirt to reveal a dark brown splotch shaped like a deformed butterfly just above his waistband. "Merle's got it, too."

Carol didn't remember seeing anything like that on Daryl, and she probably would have noticed this morning when she was caressing every inch of his bare chest and stomach. Maybe Darlene was right. Maybe Daryl's Uncle Clevus was his real father.

"But I'm a Perkins," Roscoe continued as he stepped inside the cabin. "Took my mama's daddy's last name. Grandpa was a good man, but he got shot when I's five. Wrote a song 'bout it. One of my top ten if I do say so myself. Anyhow, on account of his getting shot dead in front of her, my grandmama took a dislike to firearms, and she wouldn't allow them in the trailer."

"But you _do_ know how to shoot?" Carol led him to the living room where he would sleep.

"I'm better than Tyreese."

"I get the impression that's not saying a great deal."

"It ain't." Roscoe set his fiddle and bow in the rocking chair and leaned his guitars against the couch. He plopped his backpack on the floor, took off his cowboy hat, and ran a hand through the thick, dark curls. "Well look at that." He walked over to a coat rack that was standing to the left of the fireplace. "You know what they say." He set his hat on the gold ball atop one of the arms. "Home is where you hang your hat."

Carol showed him the kitchen next, and he "Woooh-wheeed" when he saw the contents of the pantry. "Yer givin' us all that?"

"Breakfast and lunch is on your own, but we eat communal dinners in the big cabin."

"And do you cook those communal dinners, ma'am?"

"I do."

"Well that is going to be both a pleasure and a delight."

Carol chuckled. Next she showed him the bathroom and explained they used the toilet only when absolutely necessary, "Basically, in the middle of the night and for emergencies, otherwise, use nature's bathroom. You can wash up in the sink every day, but you'll need to add hot water from the kettle to the cold. Don't run the shower. We try to conserve water. We have to run generators to run the pumps to refill the water tanks. We don't like to waste gasoline doing that."

"Be more efficient if you used electricity," he said.

"Well we don't have electricity, obviously."

"I can make it."

She laughed. "You can make electricity?"

"Well, not make it _per se_. I just mean, there's lots of vehicles on this mountain that y'all ain't usin'."

"Some were too complicated for Darlene to wire," she said, "and we couldn't find the keys, so we just siphoned off the gas."

"But they all got batteries. Hook those batteries up to each other and then to the water pump…reckon I can get somethin' goin'."

"So you're a musician and an electrician?" Carol asked.

"I started my apprenticeship my last year of high school. But then Grandmama died and I just didn't see the point of stickin' 'round them backwoods. Took off for Nashville when I was eighteen."

"Like Merle for the Army."

"I s'pose," Roscoe said as he followed her back toward the front door. "Although Merle was in and out of juvie years before that. Always felt bad for Daryl. _Both_ his parents were checked out. I at least had my grandmama."

He gestured for Carol to go through the open door first. She was leaving it propped open to continue the airing out. Roscoe followed her onto the porch. "With Merle gone so much, I thought of tryin' to take Daryl under my wing, so to speak, but Will Dixon didn't want his bastard son around. Wouldn't admit I was his, even after the court ordered child support. And Daryl was hard to find anyhow. I think he lived in the woods half the time." Roscoe clattered down the stairs beside her, his cowboy boots clicking against the wood planks. Carl was riding a bike on the dirt road outside the big cabin while Sophia directed him in circles and zig zags with her cane like a conductor. "I can see the resemblance."

"What resemblance?" Carol asked.

"'Tween Daryl and Sophia."

Carol smiled. "Oh. She's not his. Daryl and I met after all this started."

"Ah. That explains it."

"Explains what?" she asked.

"I reckon women become less choosy in the end times."

"I became _more_ choosy," Carol assured him.

When Sophia spied them, she walked quickly down the hill with the aid of her cane. "Ms. Sasha said you have sheet music?"

"I do," Roscoe told her. "And I'd have even more if she hadn't burned half of it stokin' campfires."

"Can I borrow some and try playing on the piano in there?"

"Sure can. And I can teach you a thing or two, if you like. I mean, if it's a'right with your mama."

"Can he, Mom?"

Sophia looked so excited that Carol didn't want to turn her down, but she accompanied them back to the cabin. There was no way she was going to leave her daughter alone with a man she hardly knew. Roscoe brought in a messy stack full of sheet music and set it on top of the piano for Sophia to rifle through. She picked something, opened it up, and started playing. Roscoe sat down next to her on the bench and corrected her here and there while Carol watched from the couch.

When Sophia was done with that song, Roscoe asked, "Mind if I play somethin'?"

Sophia shook her head and then scooted to the very edge of the bench to give him some more room.

Roscoe's fingers flew across the piano in a complicated, rockabilly tune for two minutes, and then he snatched them from the keys, looked at Sophia, and said, "Your turn, little darlin'."

Sophia laughed. "I can't do _anything_ like that!"

"Ain't as hard as it looks. We'll start with the first few notes."

He instructed Sophia for awhile and then just started playing again on his own, something slow this time. Beth, who had wandered in through the open door of the cabin, stopped by the piano and looked over Roscoe's shoulder at the lyrics. She began to sing along to his playing:

 _Those backwoods roots will hold you down_  
 _And blood of kin can make you drown_  
 _But there's freedom in the love we found_  
 _So wrap your tender arms around me..._

Carol couldn't help but think of Daryl while she listened.

 _Darlin', we have travelled far_  
 _Chasin' down some distant star_  
 _But I can't feel a single scar_  
 _With your arms around me..._

At this point, Maggie inched inside the open cabin door and stopped next to the end table in the living room. She looked suspiciously from Roscoe to Beth and back to Roscoe.

 _Once I was a little boy  
Shattered like a broken toy  
But you have turned my grief to joy  
With your arms around me…_

"Damn, girl!" Roscoe said when the song was over. "You got some pipes. And you picked that right up."

"I've never seen it before," Beth said. "It's a nice song, though. Who wrote it?"

"Well...I did."

Beth peered a little closer at the sheet music and read, "Roscoe William Perkins."

"That's my name. Don't wear it out."

Beth giggled.

"Beth," Maggie said, a little sternly, "I need you for something."

"What?" Beth asked.

" _Something_."

Beth sighed but followed her big sister out the door.

Roscoe slid off the bench, removed his fiddle from the rocking chair, and sat down, while Sophia attempted the next piece of sheet music she'd selected. "So you and Daryl's married?" he asked Carol.

"No, no," Carol said. "Not married."

"Shackin' up?"

"We're living together," she said, and the words sounded weird in her own ears. Living together didn't mean what it used to mean, not in a world where people had to survive in close-knit communities. She wondered what, exactly, it meant to Daryl. But rather than worry about that, she asked, "What was Daryl like as a boy?"

"Couldn't say really. Saw him once every three weeks or so. Always had the urge to hose him down when I did."

Carol chuckled.

"Mostly he just avoided other folks. That's why I was surprised to see he had himself such a lovely woman. Curious how he managed to woo you."

"Well, he saved my daughter's life at great risk to himself. And he brought me venison and flowers."

"Damn," Roscoe said. "That's romance movie shit right there. Excuse my French, ma'am. Romance movie _content_."

Sophia stopped playing and asked, "You want to play, Mama?"

Carol hadn't touched a piano in a long while, but she decided to take the bench. She knew that the sounds she produced weren't even as good as Sophia's playing, but it still felt freeing to be moving her fingers across that ivory.

She'd chosen "When the Saints Go Marching In" because it was simple enough to play and it was upbeat, and she was feeling happy.

Halfway through the second stanza, a fiddle come in on the tune, and Sophia started singing. _Singing._ Carol couldn't remember the last time she'd heard her little girl _sing._ It occurred to her, with a sense of mixed guilt and joy, that Sophia was going to grow up to be a completely different woman now that Ed was dead and Daryl was in their lives.

[*]

Michonne sat on the steel kitchen counter next to Andre, who was sipping orange juice from a real glass. No sippy cups in the apocalypse. Zach had kept the little boy entertained while Michonne did the grim work of dragging out and burning the remnants of Mike and Terry. She had done the deed in angry silence, refusing any help. Then they'd all come to the kitchen to load up.

"This breakfast diner is like a diabetic coma waiting to happen," Rick said as he looked over the shelves full of orange juice, apple juice, just-add-water pancake mix, chocolate chips, brown sugar, white sugar, powdered sugar, jarred baked apples, syrup, apple sauce, canned whip cream, jelly, canned peaches and pears, raisins, cereal, granola, and apple butter.

"We'll burn it off by living like they did in the 18th century," Zach said. "Look at Daryl. He's probably lived on pop tarts his whole life and he's in great shape."

"Least I ain't been livin' on beer for the past three months."

"Touche." Zach grabbed a cardboard box and started packing.

In addition to the sugary goods, they were also able to gather ketchup, salt, pepper, coffee, hot sauce, salsa, flour, baking soda, chopped nuts, peanut butter, and canisters full of dry grits and oatmeal.

"Any tea in here?" Daryl asked.

Michonne eyed him curiously. "Wouldn't have taken you for a tea drinker."

[*]

Carol was preparing for dinner and trying not to be nervous about the fact that the men weren't back yet. Checking three different places took time, she assured herself, and maybe they'd had to kill a few walkers or work around some wreckage.

"Can I help?" Maggie asked, and Carol jumped a little because she hadn't heard the woman enter the kitchen.

"Sure." Carol put her to work tenderizing the venison. "This is the last of it."

"Maybe Daryl will catch another deer tomorrow. Tyreese, Sasha, Glenn, and T-Dog are out there working on the smoke house. It should be ready tomorrow afternoon." Maggie stopped tenderizing the meat. "What do you think of Roscoe?"

"He seems harmless enough," Carol said as she opened a can of olives.

"You don't think he's paying a little too much attention to Beth?"

"Honestly? I think that might be going the other way around. Teenage girls need a celebrity crush. And there are no celebrities anymore. Maybe Roscoe will have to do."

"If he lays a finger on her..." Maggie shook her head.

"Roscoe doesn't strike me as lecherous," Carol said. "I think he's just friendly. And everyone's looking out for Beth here. Just like everyone's looking out for Sophia and Carl."

"We have a good thing going here," Maggie agreed as she went back to work on the venison. "I hope it lasts."

[*]

Little Andre slept with his head on his mother's lap in the back seat of the pick-up. Rick drove while Daryl chewed on one of the Snickers bars they'd snagged from the mechanic's office. Zach was following them in the battered sedan Michonne had taken from the men who ran her off the road.

"Michonne," Rick asked. "Is that French?"

"I don't know." Her voice was tight and so were her muscles. She still looked tense and angry, but, even so, she stroked her boy's hair softly. "My parents were originally from New York. There was a local artist they liked. They took the name from her."

"Named after an artist," Rick said. "Interesting. Well, I'm named after a king."

"King Rick?" Daryl asked skeptically.

"King _Richard_."

"The homo or the one with the lion heart?"

"A tea drinker and an English historian," Rick said. "Who would have guessed?"

"I got layers. Like a MoonPie." Daryl glanced at Michonne in the rear view mirror. "How come ya ain't cried none 'bout yer boyfriend?" He still didn't fully trust this woman.

"Maybe because he was getting high while he was supposed to be watching our son."

"And ya ain't had no idea he's gonna do that?"

Michonne looked out the window. Her nostrils flared. "Mike and I used it on occasion before the collapse. I haven't touched it since. I didn't know he had any left, and I certainly didn't think he'd be _that_ irresponsible. But maybe I should have seen it coming. This world changes people." She turned her head back. Her eyes were cool in the mirror. "I've killed dozens of those _things_. But I'd never killed a human being before last night. Have you?"

"Yeah," Daryl answered, thinking of what had happened back on the Greene family farm. "Sometimes people need killin'."

"Sometimes," Michonne agreed. She closed her eyes, breathed in like she was meditating, and sighed out. She didn't speak another word for most of the rest of the drive, until they turned onto the dirt road that wound its slow way up the mountain. Then she said, "Thank you. Thank you for saving my son."


	54. A Plan for Terminus

Carol was just finishing up her cooking when she heard the sounds of arrival outside the cabin – doors slamming and people hollering. She dampened the fire in the wood stove, wrapped the venison in foil to keep it warm, and ran out to make sure Daryl was okay. She found him standing a few feet away from Roscoe on the dirt roadway and looking him over curiously.

"I recognized Darlene right away," Roscoe said, "but you were two feet shorter when I left."

"Roscoe ain't hardly aged a day, has he?" Darlene asked.

"Aged a hell of a lot more than a day," Daryl said. "Got all that stubble now 'stead of zits."

Roscoe held out his hand to Daryl.

Daryl muttered something indecipherable and shook. Then he caught sight of Carol and nodded to her. She supposed that was as affectionate a greeting as she was going to get in front of all these people. She approached him with a smile but then spied a pair of strangers over his shoulder - an exotically beautiful woman who was holding the hand of a little boy. "Who's that?"

Daryl waved them over and made a brief introduction. "Carol. 'Chonne. 'Chonne and her boy Andy's gonna stay with us."

"Shone?" Carol asked.

" _Mi_ chonne," the woman said. "And this is Andre." She patted the little boy's head. Carol smiled down at him, and he buried his face against Michonne's leg but then moved it just enough to peer at Carol with one eye. "Rick and Daryl saved him from a herd of walkers."

"And me," Zach said as he took a box of food out of the pick-up. He glanced at Beth, who was grabbing two cans of oil. "I helped. I took down most of the walkers, actually. At least a dozen."

Beth smiled indulgently and walked past him toward the cabin. Zach followed, looking a bit confused at her failure to fawn over his manly deed.

Meanwhile, Roscoe tipped his hat to Michonne and then to the child. "Sturdy lookin' boy you got there." His eyes fell on Michonne's waist. "That is one spectacular belt."

To Carol's surprise, Daryl took her hand and tugged. "C'mon. See the loot I gotchya." He held onto her hand until they reached a scratched-up sedan, and then he let go and popped the trunk. It was full of baking supplies. He pointed to the baked cinnamon apples, the flour, and the whip cream. "Bet yer gonna wanna bake an apple pie."

"Sounds like _you_ want me to bake _you_ an apple pie," she teased.

"Wouldn't object," Daryl admitted with a closed-lip smile.

She reached out and gently touched the gash on his cheek. He pulled away. "What happened there?" she asked.

"Got cut on broken glass. 'S fine."

Carol leaned in and kissed the small wound. Daryl's cheek flushed when she pulled away, and his eyes darted around. "What?" she asked. "You don't want people to know I like you?" She was teasing, but she also _wasn't_ teasing. Part of her still felt insecure, even though he'd said - in his own Daryl-like way - that he loved her. "Are you keeping your options open?"

"What options?" he asked. "Yer everything." Two simple words, yet they said so much, and Daryl didn't seem aware he'd said anything romantic at all. He jerked his head to the left. "Who's them folk over there talkin' to Glenn?"

"I'll introduce you."

[*]

Daryl made a quick evaluation of the Williams siblings. Tyreese, he decided, was one big ass pussy, while his little sister was the one to watch. After exchanging a few grunted words with them, he called Carol and Sophia over to the vehicles. He showed them their pink camo pajamas and then he picked up the sheet music Sophia had asked for.

"Mr. Perkins actually has a ton already," Sophia said.

"Who?"

"Roscoe," Carol told him.

"Ah, yeah. Forgot his mama's last name."

"He's got everything," Sophia said. "Blues, folk, country! All sorts of stuff. I'm going to ask if he'll teach me harmonica." She stuck her cane against the ground and headed off toward Roscoe, who was pointing to the motorcycle batteries in the pick-up and talking to Sasha.

Daryl scowled and tossed the sheet music back into the trunk. Carol's hand came to a rest gently on the small of his back. " _I'd_ like to have that sheet music," she said softly. "I love hymns."

" _Biker_ hymns?" He stepped away from her touch, still scowling.

"And I love my sexy new jammies," Carol teased. "If you're good, I might show them off for you tonight."

"Stop." Daryl plucked up two large jugs of orange juice from the trunk by their handles, but her words _did_ distract him from his sullenness. For a moment, he couldn't help but wonder if Carol would like something that actually _was_ sexy. If he found a Victoria's Secret and looted it, would she wear that stuff for him?

He was thinking about her in a skimpy, silky, red nightie when he turned around and tried to hand her off one of the jugs, asking, "Carry one?" as he tossed it toward her. He'd been so distracted, he hadn't realized she'd already grabbed a jug in each hand. His jug fell to the ground with a slosh and a thud.

She smiled. "Mhmmm...No."

Mortified, Daryl covered his face with his hand.

Carol's chuckle trailed away from him as she walked toward the big cabin with her two jugs of orange juice. He sighed and scooped the fallen one off the ground.

[*]

"Best venison steak I ever had, ma'am," Roscoe said as he cut off another piece. "You are one talented chef."

"Thank you." Carol glanced at Daryl to see his reaction to this compliment, wondering if there might be a spark of jealousy in his eyes, but he seemed entirely unperturbed. He just murmured "Mhmhm" and continued eating.

Carol scolded herself for feeling disappointed. She'd had a jealous, possessive husband most of her life. She certainly didn't need another man who got riled up every time another man complimented her. But some part of her _had_ wanted Daryl to be jealous. She'd probably found Ed's jealousy flattering in the beginning, in those years before he started hitting her. Carol wasn't that foolish young woman anymore, though. She wasn't the worn-down wife either. "I'm glad you like it, Roscoe."

"Tell Rick and Daryl about Terminus," T-Dog said.

The story was retold. A debate erupted about whether they should take on Terminus to prevent innocent people from being murdered and eaten. To Carol's surprise, Rick, who had been adamantly in favor of going to Terminus before, was now just as adamantly against the idea.

"How can we just let people walk into a death trap like that? Maggie asked.

"Because _our_ responsibility is to _our_ group," Rick told her. "There are _three_ children here now. Four if you count Beth."

"I am _not_ a child," Beth insisted from where she sat at the kids table with Carl, Zach, Sophia, and Andre.

Sophia had decided Andre was her own personal baby doll, and she had the child sitting on her lap as she cut up his food for him into tiny bits. The rest of the adults were crammed in at the main table, except Glenn, who was on watch at the moment, and Sasha and Tyreese, who sat on stools at the counter top.

"There are twelve adults here," Rick continued. "How many armed men at Terminus?"

" _Thirteen_ adults," Beth corrected him.

"Thirty at least," Roscoe said. "And they got big guns. And they're stark ravin' mad."

"I let my wife die." Michonne looked across the table at Rick when he said this, as though she understood the guilt in his voice. "I'm not going to let anything happen to my son, and I am _not_ going to leave him fatherless. Supply runs are one thing. They're risky enough. But _war_?"

"I'm with Maggie," Darlene said. "It don't sit right with me, knowin' people are hearin' that on the radio, headin' for Macon, and then becomin' dinner."

Rick looked at Daryl. "What do you think?"

"Don't sit right with me neither."

"So you think we should go and fight them?" Rick asked.

"Hell no! Let the people out there take their chances and fend for themselves. Like we done."

"If you feel that way," Michonne asked, "why did you rescue my son? Why did you take us in?"

"'S different," Daryl muttered.

"You fought Negan's men," Maggie reminded him. "You could have just stayed hidden in that tree in that forest. You could have let me and Beth die."

"'S different."

"How?" Maggie asked.

"Just _is_." Daryl took a bite of his venison and said nothing more.

"It feels wrong to me, too," Carol admitted. "Just to let that happen."

"Me too," Andrea echoed. "I didn't do enough to save my sister. I feel like I should do something to save the victims of Terminus."

Roscoe tapped his forehead and made a sizzling sound.

Andrea's brow furrowed. "What does that mean?"

"Means a light bulb just went off in my head." Roscoe cut off another bit of his venison steak, popped it in his mouth, and chewed.

"And are you going to share with the group?" Andrea asked him.

"Hold your horses, darlin'." He swallowed and then took a sip of his water. "We can go to that radio station that's playin' that damn Trace Adkins song on eternal loop."

"Ladies Love Country Boys?" T-Dog asked.

"Yep. The one Terminus keeps breakin' into for its broadcast."

"And take the song off the air?" Carol asked. "And play our own message instead? A warning not to go to Terminus?"

Roscoe put a finger on his nose.

"It's not a bad idea," Andrea said. "Who knows how to use that equipment?"

Roscoe pointed to himself with a thumb. "Used to work at a radio station in Nashville for three years, when I was 'tween bands."

"Why hasn't the power playing that song run out?" Carol asked.

"I reckon it's some kind of emergency broadcasting system power backup," Roscoe answered.

"Where's the station?" Andrea wanted to know. "Is it all the way in Macon?"

"Nah. Just an hour and a half from here. WCNT. We drove by the building on our way up, but didn't think 'bout bustin' in and changin' the song at the time."

"Because that area was _infested_ ," Tyreese reminded roscoe. "We had to plow through a bunch of them, remember? We barely got off that street. And the building's probably crawling with them."

"That's why if I'm gonna change out that song," Roscoe said, "need a few marksmen. God knows _I_ ain't one."

"I'm a good shot," Maggie said. "I'll go with you."

"I will too," Andrea told him. "I'm not the best, but I've been getting better, and I've been wanting some real life target practice."

"Sasha….." Roscoe smiled across the kitchen at her. "Fierce firefighter, lovely daughter of a marine sniper, what say you?"

Sasha sighed. "I'll go. But I thought you said Terminus wasn't your rodeo?"

"It ain't. But I don't want all these pretty ladies undergoing crises of conscience."

Sasha snorted and shook her head.

"I don't like the idea of you doing this," Tyreese told his big sister.

Sasha ignored him. "Anyone else want to join us?"

"I'm not going," Rick said. "I have my son here, and I want to plant some vegetables before the first freeze."

"And I want to build a root cellar for storing those vegetables in the spring," T-Dog said.

Darlene set her fork on her plate. "I'd happily sign up for the Take Out Terminus Club, but I been told you don't let your doctor leave your camp."

"I can't leave my son behind again," Michonne answered. "Not after what happened in that diner."

"Any more good shots in here?" Roscoe asked.

"I am _now._ " Carol was surprised by how confident she was in saying that, but after weeks of intense practice, she _had_ become a good shot.

"Hell no," Daryl said. "No way, no how. Carol ain't goin'."

Carol met his eyes. She knew he was just concerned for her safety, but _no man_ got to tell her what to do anymore. He must have read the message in her gaze, because Daryl shifted uncomfortably in his seat and said, "Meant if she goes, I go."

"You need to stay and hunt," Carol told him.

"Ain't goin' without me," Daryl told her.

"I can handle myself, Daryl."

"Mama, I don't want you to go!" Sophia cried from the kids' table, and suddenly Carol remembered that being a mother to her daughter was a bit more important than proving to herself she was capable of walker-slaying.

"We could use a good shot in the watchtower," Rick told her softly. "And God knows you're invaluable to us here as a chef."

"Fine. I'll stay," Carol agreed reluctantly. "It's just...if you needed me, I _could_ do it."

Roscoe looked over at the kids' table. "I hear tell you're an expert marksman, Zachary."

"Uh..." Zach said. He glanced at Beth and then sat up a little straighter in his chair. "Yeah. I'm a good shot. I'll go with you guys." He looked at Beth hopefully.

This time, she threw him a bone. "That's _really_ dangerous."

"I know," he told her and reached out and squeezed her hand on the table. "But we have to do the right thing."

In the end, it was decided that Roscoe, Andrea, Maggie, Zach, and Sasha would leave for the radio station in the morning.

When Glenn came in to switch out his watch shift with T-Dog, and he heard of the plan, he was not pleased. "Why you?" he asked Maggie.

"Because I'm a good shot."

"No. You aren't going without me to protect you."

Maggie snorted. "Protect _me_?"

"I've dealt with herds before, in Atlanta," Glenn told her. "I'm better at this than you think. I'm coming with you."

"There's only room for five in our biggest pick-up," Maggie insisted.

"I'll ride in the bed," Glenn told her.

"That'll be cold," Maggie told him. "The temperature's dropping, and with the wind - "

"- We should take Roscoe's SUV also," Sasha interrupted. "That way, if one or the other vehicles breaks down, we have backup. With both, we can park in two different places and come in from two different directions. If we can't get back to one, we can get back to the other. And if we keep both and find supplies on the way home, that's more space to haul them."

"Brilliant," Roscoe exclaimed. "Now y'all can see why I condescended to join up with these folk."

Sasha chuckled. "That's funny, Roscoe. Because the way I recall it, you _condescended_ to jump in the bed of our pick-up before you got your ass bit by those walkers in Montrose."

"Could of handled 'em just fine on my own, but, you know, I saw a pretty woman drivin'. Naturally I was drawn to that pick-up like a moth to the flame."

Sasha shook her head and cleared her plate to the sink.


	55. Love Languages

Michonne and Andre were assigned to the third cabin with the other three newcomers. She and her son would share a bedroom and a bed while the siblings would get the second room and Roscoe would take the living room couch. So Tyreese and Daryl carried another mattress up from one of the lower cabins to set on the floor of the second bedroom and Carol went to work making it up.

"It'll be like when we were kids again," Tyreese said. "And I used to get scared when it stormed and have a sleepover in my sister's room."

"Ain't ya the _older_ brother?" Daryl asked.

Tyreese's grin faded. "Yeah, but I was little then."

"Weren't Sasha littler?"

Tyreese shrugged and walked out of the bedroom.

Carol smoothed out the top sheet.

"Why don't Tyreese make his own damn bed?" Daryl asked. "That ain't yer job. Ya don't have to do that."

"I make _our_ bed," she reminded him.

"Yeah, well, Tyreese ain't sleepin' in _our_ bed."

"Why? You're not a fan of threesomes?"

"Stop."

She chuckled. "I want to make the bed." Carol liked having things neat. It gave her a minor sense of control.

"Suit yerself. Goin' outside for a smoke. Got three packs off of walkers on this run. " He vanished from the bedroom.

When Carol walked out into the living room later, Roscoe was on the couch strumming his guitar, and Michonne was sitting next to him behind Andre, who stood pounding on the coffee table with the palms of his hands.

"Boy's gonna be a drummer," Roscoe told her.

Tyreese was lighting the fire, and Sasha was in the rocking chair with her feet up on the coffee table.

"Bed's ready," Carol said.

"Carol, you deserve the Annual Hospitality Award." Roscoe turned one of the tuning knobs on his guitar and continued strumming.

"This radio station trip better not be a fool's errand," Sasha warned him. "I'd hate to die on the road when we have a sweet place like this. I'm surprised you even suggested it."

"I think he wanted to impress Andrea," Tyreese said as he fed the fire with some sheet music.

"That better not be one of my songs!" Roscoe growled.

"It's just Alan Jackson." Tyreese fed another sheet into the fire.

"C'mon, man! Use that old newspaper lyin' on the kitchen table!"

Tyreese rose to go get the newspaper.

"You better not get any of us killed just to impress a girl," Sasha said.

"Maybe I did it to impress _you_." Roscoe winked at her.

"I doubt that, because you know how impossible I am to impress."

"That I do. What do you want me to play for you, brown sugar?"

"Call me that one more time," Sasha pointed a finger sharply in his direction, "and I _will_ castrate you."

"Otis Reddin', then?" Roscoe asked.

"Goodnight, y'all," Carol told them with a chuckle and made her way out. As she began to shut the door, she could hear Roscoe strumming and singing. He had a slightly gravelly and yet surprisingly melodic voice, and she leaned back against the cabin wall with the door still slightly ajar to keep listening.

She saw the red tipped flair of the cigarette at the foot of the stairs before she heard Daryl's deep voice. "Whatchaya doin' just standin' there?"

Carol stepped away from the wall, closed the cabin door all the way, and headed down. "Just listening to Roscoe sing. Why?" she teased. "Are you jealous?"

"Of _Roscoe_?" He dropped the cigarette to the ground, stubbed it out beneath his boot, and began to walk with her toward the big cabin to get Sophia.

"Roscoe said he thought of taking you under his wing when you were little," Carol told him. "But your father didn't like him around."

Daryl snorted.

"Not true?"

"True my daddy didn't like 'em. Embarrassment to 'em."

"Did _you_ like him?"

"Never had nothin' 'gainst Roscoe. He ain't never hurt no one. But I don't guess he told you 'bout the time I saved his ass from bein' beat? When I's only seven and he's almost seventeen?"

Carol chuckled. "No, he didn't mention that."

"I's out ridin' my bike. Passed his trailer. He's gettin' the snot kicked out him by a couple thirteen-year-olds. Had my B.B. gun on my back. Planted a bunch of pellets in their asses, and they run. So if anyone was gonna take anyone under a wing, it weren't gonna be Roscoe protectin' me."

"Why were they beating him up?"

Daryl shrugged. "'Cause he wrote poems."

"Just because he wrote poems?"

"Cain't write poems in them back woods. Least, cain't _tell_ no one ya write 'em."

Carol smiled and eased a little closer. She laced her arms through one of his, and he didn't shake her off until they were at the door of the big cabin.

[*]

Carol closed the book and set it on Sophia's nightstand. She leaned forward a little in the chair by her daughter's bedside. "Make sure you thank Daryl for that sheet music tomorrow. I think he was a little hurt that you didn't seem interested. You _did_ ask him to get it for you."

"I didn't mean to offend him," Sophia said. "I'm sorry."

"I know you didn't, sweetie." Carol brushed a strand of hair from Sophia's forehead. "But I think it upset him more than he'd be willing to admit."

"Why?"

Carol sat back in the chair. "I once read this book called _The Five Love Languages_ ," she told her daughter. Carol had read a lot of marriage books over the years, secretly hoping that if she just became a better wife, Ed would become a better husband. It hadn't worked, of course, but those books weren't a complete waste of time either. The lessons she'd learned from them were already coming in handy now that she was with a different man. "It talked about how different people feel and communicate love in different ways. For example, some people use words of affirmation to express their love."

"Daryl's not a word person."

"No, he's not," Carol agreed with a light smile. "And some people use physical affection."

"Daryl's not a hugger," Sophia said.

"No, he's not. But I think maybe one of Daryl's love languages is gift giving. He gave me a Cherokee Rose when you were hurt. He gave you that necklace." Sophia fingered the dolphin pendant. "And he's always bringing me things from supply runs and the forest. So when he tried to give you that music, and you just walked away, I think it hurt his feelings."

Sophia's face crumpled. "Oh." She pulled her blanket a little higher. "What are the other two love languages?"

Carol tried to remember. "Acts of service."

"That's yours," Sophia said.

"Maybe. And the other one was quality time. Spending quality time with the people you love."

"That's yours too. I like that you still read to me. "

"I like it, too." Carol bent and kissed her head.

"Their Daryl's, too."

"What are?" Carol asked.

"Acts of service and quality time. He's always hunting for people and going on supply runs. And he took me to gather acorns for the deer. I guess he thinks that's quality time."

Carol chuckled. "You didn't have fun doing that?"

Sophia shrugged. "It was kind of boring. But I have fun watching Looney Tunes with him. He's a goofy laugher."

"Maybe you should tell him that," Carol suggested. "Not that he's a goofy laugher, but that you have fun doing that with him."

Carol sometimes thought it was a sinful waste of batteries, the thirty minutes a day they allowed that DVD player to run, but maybe it wasn't. They had to do more than just survive here, or else what were they surviving for?

[*]

Carol's pink camo pajamas lay in a puddle on the bedroom floor. Her nails ran down Daryl's back, over old scars of anger, making fresh, light scratches of love as she arched her back and cried his name. She didn't think anything could be better than the waves that were rippling through her, but then came Daryl's low moan as he, too, pulsed inside her. His voice spilled into her ear: "….sweet, sexy Carol. Fuck yes!"

He collapsed on top of her like a heavy blanket. She pushed against his shoulder. Daryl rolled off and tossed the condom in the nearby trash can while she lay on her back recovering her breath. When she could hear his breathing level to a steady rhythm, she turned on her side, lay a head on his left shoulder, and curled up close against his completely naked frame, one hand on his chest, and one leg slung over both of his. For a man who'd been _inside_ her just a second ago, he sure did seem suddenly tense at her touch. "Is this okay with you?" she asked.

"Mhmhmh."

She slid her leg off him and just pressed it lightly against his, so that he had a little more space. "I know you're not a cuddler."

He splayed the fingers of his left hand across the small of her back, and he rested his right hand lightly between her shoulder blades. "I's tryin'."

"I know. Just tell me if it's too much. I understand. You're not used to it."

"'S fine."

They lay like that quietly for a long while, warm flesh to warm flesh, until Daryl began to feel too rigid. She pulled away. "Too much?" she asked.

"Just ain't used to lyin' naked. Feels…"

"Vulnerable?" she asked.

"Guess so."

"Put on some clothes then."

"Ya don't mind?"

She smiled. "It's getting cold now that we aren't going hot and heavy anyway." His cheeks flushed. "Hand me my new jammies?"

When he was in sweats and a muscle shirt, and she was in her flannel pink camos, and the kerosene lamp was turned all the way off, he spooned with her. "Like this a'right," he said.

Carol wondered why he was more comfortable this way than with her head on his chest. Maybe her back to his front made him feel less exposed. She couldn't see his scars, his expressive eyes, or his flushed cheeks. She couldn't see anything really, in the darkness that had enveloped the room. But she could feel him – the comforting weight of his arm across her, his warmth and his strength, his steady, reliable presence.

"Ain't never done it that way with no one else," he said.

"What way?"

"Face to face."

"Oh." She ran her fingers through the hair on his muscular arm. She'd asked for him to be on top again, like she had this morning. Ed had always called her prudish, and what could be more unadventurous than missionary style? But it was what she'd wanted, what she'd been comfortable with. She felt covered, safe, protected with Daryl's weight atop her, and Ed had used her so disinterestedly, that she wanted to be able to _see_ Daryl's face the whole time, to _know_ she was with a different man. It hadn't occurred to her that, for him, it _was_ an adventurous position, something new. And he'd done it for her. "You know, the human being is the only animal that has sex face to face. "

"Nah," Daryl said. "Bonobos. And western gorilla."

She chuckled. "How do you know that?"

"Nature documentaries. Got four channels. One of 'em was PBS." He was quiet for a while. "Never thought 'bout it," he mumbled. "'Bout it bein' diff'rn for people. Ain't just 'bout bein' in heat and gettin' it done."

"It doesn't have to be, anyway."

"It ain't. With you."

She traced the sinews of his arm with a single fingertip. It felt like her smile took up her whole face. "I'm glad they're going to do something to stop Terminus," she said, "but I'm also glad we're not going. I guess I just wanted to prove myself."

"Ain't got to prover yerself. Yer bad ass."

"You really think so?"

"Hell yeah. 'Specially when ya think how far ya's come. But Rick's right. Ain't no one can cook like ya. Make the food stretch and still taste good. And ya pay good attention on that watch. Needed here. So'm I. Got to hunt."

"It feels good, doesn't it?" she asked. "To be needed?"

"Mhmmmm…." He nuzzled her neck with his nose. "Feels even better to be wanted."

She smiled, because when they'd been making love earlier, she'd found herself pleading, _I want you, Daryl, I want you…_

If he said anymore, she didn't hear it. Carol slipped and slid into slumber and awoke to the rare sound of Daryl's laugh. She turned and found the spot beside her empty. She made her way out into the living room and didn't say anything when she found Daryl and Sophia tossing handfuls of dry cereal in their mouths and trying to catch it, letting some pieces rain down between the couch cushions. This was their time, after all. So instead she walked quietly behind the couch and poured herself a cup of the dark sludge of coffee Daryl had made.

"Foghorn Leghorn sounds like my Uncle Clevus," Daryl told Sophia.

"No way!"

"Mhm. Just like."

"You don't sound anything like that," Sophia assured him.

"Well, maybe he picked some up in Kentucky. My aunt was from there. Her and Clevus and Billy Ray moved back eight months 'fore I's born." Carol, overhearing this, wondered if Daryl's uncle had left town because he knew he'd knocked up Daryl's mother and he wanted Will Dixon to assume the boy was his. "They moved back to Georgia when I's four. Good thing they come back, 'cause he taught me the bow."

"Was he nice? Your Uncle Clevus?"

"Depends. He could be mean as a mama wasp or sweet as maple syrup on a pancake Sunday, dependin' on which way ya was to him. Watch this!" He pointed to the screen.

They both laughed.

"Just once I want 'em to get that chicken hawk," Daryl said.

"I like doing this with you," Sophia told him. "It's fun."

Daryl dipped his eyes into the cereal box. "Like it too," he muttered.

"What did you do with that sheet music you got from the church?" Sophia asked. "I want to try playing one of those biker hymns."

Carol took her coffee with her and slipped away quietly to the bathroom to freshen up for the morning.


	56. Mission Accomplished

Carol, carrying a brown paper grocery bag, approached Roscoe's SUV. He and Andrea were looking at a map that was spread out on the hood. Roscoe snaked an arm behind Andrea to point at something on the map, and she slipped away with a raised eyebrow. "I don't think you really had to put your arm around me to be able to point that out," she told him.

"Sorry," Roscoe said. "Just seemed the best angle."

"I don't think that's what you were doing."

"Don't flatter yourself, darlin'." He grabbed the map off the hood and folded it up abruptly before walking around to the hatch of the SUV to toss in his backpack. Andrea, shaking her head, wandered off toward the pick-up Maggie was loading.

Carol handed Roscoe the paper bag. "I put together some lunch for y'all."

"Thank you kindly." Roscoe took the bag and put it in the hatch. "Daryl's a lucky man. Funny how things get turned upside down in an apocalypse. Raises some men and humbles others."

"Maybe some men _need_ humbling," Sasha told him with a smirk as she strolled forward and tossed her bag in the hatch. Her rifle she kept on her shoulder.

"You ridin' with me?" Roscoe asked.

"Me and Zach. Maggie, Glenn, and Andrea are going in the pick-up."

Zach arrived behind her and slid his rifle and pack into the hatch. "Sorry I'm late. I had to say goodbye to Beth."

"Must have been a good goodbye judgin' by that shit eatin' grin on your face," Roscoe said.

Zach nodded. "Asked her to be my girl, and she said yes."

"It's not like she had a lot of options," Sasha told him.

"Thanks." Zach said. "Thanks for pointing that out."

"Sorry," Sasha replied. "I don't know why I said that."

Roscoe looked over the SUV in Andrea's direction. "Hell. 'Least _someone_ thinks yer better than _nothin_ ', kid."

"You know Andrea's a lesbian, right?" Zach asked him.

"What?" Carol and Roscoe both asked at the same time.

"Oh, sorry," Zach muttered. "Thought that was general knowledge." He walked around the hatch and opened the rear door of the SUV and slid inside quickly.

"That ain't true, is it?" Roscoe asked.

Carol shrugged. "I wouldn't know."

Sasha smiled. "I think Zach's just jumping to his own conclusions."

"Probably," Roscoe agreed. "Because if she really were, she'd be all over you, brown sugar. Now that would be a sight to see. As sweet as swirl ice cream."

Sasha glared at him. "Is this _really_ the day you want me to make a eunuch of you?"

"Maybe. Might be the closest I'm ever gonna get to havin' it touched again."

Sasha chuckled. "Come on. Let's get moving."

"Y'all have a safe trip," Carol told them. "Come back to us. This is your home now, too."

Sasha nodded and Roscoe tipped his hat to her before closing the hatch.

[*]

Carol had finally finished inventorying and re-organizing the pantry and cupboards when Daryl plopped a hunk of already skinned meat on the kitchen counter. It's limbs and head had been chopped off outside on the "skinning table," so she wasn't quite sure what it was. "What is it?" she asked.

"Swamp Rabbit. If we's only gonna eat herbivores, limits what I can hunt."

"I don't think animals can transmit the disease, even if they do nibble on a dead walker. And cooking should take care of it anyway."

"Ain't you the one who didn't want me to hunt bear?"

"Not because of _that_ ," she admitted.

"Good, 'cause we've already eaten birds. Ya know, they eat worms. And worms eat dead things." He nodded to the hand cranked radio she had playing on the counter top. It was on the station that was playing "Ladies Love Country Boys" on endless loop. "Ya like that damn song?"

"I have it on so I can hear if they succeed. The Terminus message breaks into the song every fifteen minutes, like clockwork."

As if on cue, the radio crackled, the music stopped, and a female voice said, "Terminus. Sanctuary for all, community for all. Those who arrive, survive." The message repeated, but then the radio began to die. Carol walked over, picked it up, and cranked the handle around and around until "Ladies Love Country Boys" started playing again. She set the radio on the counter top.

T-Dog, wiping an arm across his bald and sweaty brow, entered the kitchen. It was fairly cool outside, but he'd been working. "The root cellar and smokehouse are both finished now." He nodded to the rabbit. "You want to try hanging that?"

"Might be a good idea," Carol told Daryl. "Test out the smoke house. I can make pancakes and fruit for dinner tonight. We can have the rabbit later, if it works."

"It'll work," T-Dog said. "We followed the instruction in that book to the letter. Can I get a glass of water, Carol?"

"Sure." Carol turned and opened the cupboard.

"Get yer own damn glass of water!" Daryl told him. "She ain't yer servant!" He grabbed the carcass of the rabbit roughly off the counter and headed out of the cabin.

"What's eating him?" T-Dog asked.

"He thinks people take advantage of me," Carol said while she filled up a glass from the faucet and then handed it to T-Dog. "But that's not really his problem. He's worried about everyone going to that radio station. He just doesn't know how to express that."

"You're like Snow White," T-Dog said.

Carol's brow furrowed. "How so?"

"You know how she could understand all the animals?"

Carol chuckled. "I'm worried, too. Aren't you?"

"We all are. Darlene's been pacing nonstop in that watchtower. Beth's been playing with Andre and looking like she's trying not to cry the whole time. Tyreese was hammering extra hard while we were building. And Rick's anxious, but at least Michonne's been distracting him with her katana."

"By teaching him?"

T-Dog shook his head and chuckled. "No. By looking incredibly hot while she practices. Rick's been watching."

"I hope _you_ haven't been watching," Carol scolded him affectionately.

"I only have eyes for Darlene, but..." He shrugged. "Sometimes I think she's getting tired of me. I get the impression she's not really a one-man sort of woman. Closest she ever got was Marcus, and they ended up parting ways."

"Well," Carol told him. "She might just have to _become_ a one-man woman. Because she's got a good one."

T-Dog smiled faintly. "Thanks." He drained his glass of water, set it in the sink, and left the kitchen, ducking his head and wiping his still sweaty face with the bottom of his shirt.

[*]

Carol went shopping in the cabins to find herself a good griddle for the pancakes. She found one she could lay atop the wood stove, but when she dropped it off in the kitchen, the radio was dead. She cranked it again and busied herself pulling out her ingredients and lining them up on the counter while "Ladies Love Country Boys" played through twice. The radio crackled, and Carol sighed when Teminus's message came back on.

She went to check on Sophia and Carl in the park. They were both playing in the sandbox with Andre. The little boy was imitating everything Carl did, and Carl was soaking it up. "No, Andre," Carl said, puffing out his chest a little and sounding very sure of himself. "You dig like this."

The scent of smoke drifted down from the smokehouse just beyond the park. Carol went to investigate, peered inside, and found the rabbit dangling from the ceiling.

"Gonna be good."

She gasped and put her hand on her chest. "You have to stop sneaking up on me like that."

"Weren't sneakin'," Daryl said. "Just been round the side smokin'."

She could smell it on him, the tobacco a sharper scent than the soft smoky smells wafting from the smokehouse.

"You should really quit, you know. That's an unhealthy habit."

He leaned a shoulder against the wooden planks of the smoke house. "There's dead people walkin' round, and live people eatin' folks, and yer worried 'bout me getting' cancer twenty years from now?"

"Well, what can I say? I like you."

He dug at the dirt with the toe of his boot shyly, but then he put an arm around her waist, pulled her close, and kissed her. "Like ya, too," he whispered when he broke away. "But I ain't gonna quit smokin'."

"Well…I kind of like the taste of your cigarettes anyway." She kissed him back. He responded eagerly for a moment, but pulled away when he heard the kids whooping from the playground. "Anythin' on the radio yet?" he asked.

Carol shook her head. "Still just that song and Terminus's broadcast, unfortunately."

Daryl's sigh was almost like a growl. "Think I'm gonna go put some bullets down range."

[*]

Later that evening, while Carol was making the pancakes, Sophia was setting the table, and Carl was winding up the hand-cranked radio, Tryeese lumbered into the kitchen and leaned against the counter. Carl set the now running radio down as the sounds of "Ladies Love Country Boys" began to play.

Carol had the song deeply stuck in her head by now and couldn't help but sing along: "They never understand why their princess falls / for some camouflaged britches and a southern boy drawl..."

"What's wrong with camo britches and a southern drawl anyway?" Sophia asked as she limped around the table placing forks on the napkins.

"Nothing at all, sweetheart," Carol told her. "Nothing at all."

Carl grabbed the serving spoon Carol had been using to stir the pancake mix, held it like a microphone, and sang loudly, "But there's one thing they couldn't avoooid..." Sophia giggled and joined in with him, "Ladies love country boys!" Carl started doing some weird dance that made him look like a bobble head as he sang, "You can train 'em, you can try to teach 'em right from wrong but - "

The radio crackled. The song ceased. Carl froze and lowered his spoon. Carol turned from the griddle. Tyreese leaned in. They all looked expectantly at the radio.

"Terminus. Sanctuary for all, community for all."

"Damn it!" Sophia yelled.

Carol let the swearing slide, sighed, and returned to flipping the pancakes. "Get me a plate, Carl, would you?"

Carl, his face fallen, put the spoon back in the near-empty bowl of batter and went to fetch the plate. Carol slid the first batch of pancakes off the griddle.

"They've been gone for eight hours," Tyreese said. "Roscoe said the radio station was only halfway to Macon."

"They have to fight through all those walkers," Carol told him. "And then record the warning and switch it out. And maybe they ran into some road blockages on the way and had to detour." She wasn't sure if she was reassuring herself or reassuring Tyreese.

"Sasha's my _sister_. And Roscoe…" He shrugged his big shoulders. "Well, even just a month surviving this world together makes you family."

"It does," Carol agreed. "We've got family out there, too, you know."

Tyreese nodded.

Terminus's broadcast ended and the song came back on again. No one sang along this time. Sophia and Carl finished setting the table silently and Carol whipped up another batch of batter while Tyreese just stood staring gloomily across the counter top and out the kitchen window above the sink.

 _Now she's comin' home to visit  
Holdin' the hand  
Of a wild-eyed boy  
With a –_

"- Warning," Andrea's voice broke into the song.

Carol gasped and Tyreese grinned.

"Do NOT got to Terminus. We repeat, do NOT got to Terminus. The inhabitants of Terminus are killing and eating people. There is no sanctuary at Terminus. Warning. Do not go to Terminus. We repeat..."

"They did it!" Sophia exclaimed.

Carl pumped his first into the air. "Yes!"

Beth wandered into the kitchen with Andre on her hip. He squirmed to get loose when he saw Sophia and ran over to her. Sophia offered him two spoons to play with while Andrea's warning repeated. "They did it?" Beth asked, her childlike eyes shinning with relief.

Carol nodded.

A male voice followed Andrea's, speaking Spanish in a southern drawl: "Advertencia. No vayas al Terminus. Los habitantes están matando y comiendo a la gente. No hay santuario en Terminus."

T-Dog strolled into the kitchen sniffing pancakes. He came to a standstill when he heard the radio. "Is that Roscoe?"

"I think so," Carol said. "That was smart of him, to record the warning in Spanish, too."

"It probably wasn't his idea," T-Dog said.

"Don't be so jealous," Beth warned him. "I'm telling you, Roscoe's not interested in Darlene. He's clearly in love with Sasha."

"What?" Tyreese asked sharply. "I thought he was interested in Andrea."

"Ewww!" Carl cried. "Enough with the icky romance stuff!"

T-Dog laughed. "Someday you won't find it so icky. Trust me."

"Never," Carl vowed.

Now another male voice came on the radio.

"What language is that?" Sophia asked.

"I think it's Korean," Carol said. "That's Glenn."

"I didn't think Glenn spoke any Korean," came Rick's voice as he wandered into the kitchen with Michonne close behind him. He nodded to the radio. "So they did it?"

"They did it," Carol assured him.

Now a younger male voice came onto the radio. "Attention, ne pas aller à Terminus..."

"That's French," Michonne observed.

"That's Zach," Beth said, smiling a little.

"And that's the first language of pretty much no one in Georgia," Rick said. "Why are they bothering with that?"

"Zach took four years of French in high school," Beth said. "He probably just wanted to do it." She giggled, covered her mouth, and shook her head. "He likes to feel useful."

"Well I'm sure his shooting ability was useful," T-Dog told her. "And if I were you, I wouldn't take that young man's affections for granted."

"Who's takin' who for granted?" Darlene asked, strutting up behind T-Dog and trailing her fingertips across his lower back as she passed to the other side of him. She planted a little kiss on his cheek.

"No one, I guess," said T-Dog, smiling a little.

"Daryl's in the watchtower now, " Darlene told Carol, "And - " She fell silent when Andrea's voice came through the radio again, repeating the first warning. "Yeeeee haw!" Darlene shouted. "They done it!"

T-Dog laughed and gathered her up in a bear hug. Soon, everyone was cheering.

"Someone turn these pancakes," Carol demanded. "I'm going to tell Daryl."

[*]

Daryl, his crossbow riding his back, looked at her anxiously when she mounted the ladder to the tree house. But when she smiled, his eyes brightened with relief. "They done it?"

"They recorded the warning in four languages. It's playing on an endless loop instead of that song."

His lips twitched in a little smile that melted her heart. "Worrieder than I thought I was."

"I knew you were." She slid her arms around his neck and kissed him.

He pressed her forehead against hers. They stood like that for a moment before he eased away and she left him to his solitary watch.

[*]

Carol's merriment subsided when midnight rolled around and the team was not yet home. She'd been on watch since nine and heard no approaching vehicles. The stars lined the clear, dark night sky like a glowing blanket. Tyreese climbed the ladder of the tree house to take over the watch from her. For a moment, Carol thought one of the rungs was going to give way beneath his weight, but he made it to the platform. His jaw clenched, he looked out over the rail of the deck to the empty dirt road.

"Maybe they decided to camp overnight when the sun set," Carol reassured him. "It's not safe traveling at night. They probably found a safe place to hole up, and they'll head back at sunrise."

"Maybe," Tyreese said. His big shoulders rose and fell with his sigh. "My sister's a really good shot. She used to go shooting all the time with our father. She's going to be fine." He sounded like he only half believed his own words.

Carol handed him the binoculars. "Rick will relieve you at three in the morning. Can you shoot well enough if you see a walker come out of the woods?"

Tyreese raised his rifle, "With the scope on this thing, probably. If not..." He nodded to the hammer in his belt. "I'll just climb down and brain it."

"Well, come wake us up if they come back tonight. Just pound on our cabin door."

Tyreese nodded, and Carol shimmied down the rope ladder.


	57. Newcomers

When Carol came into the cabin, Daryl was standing behind the kitchen counter and pulling tea bags out of two cups. Carol propped her rifle against the wall and strolled over.

"No sign of 'em?" he asked.

"Not yet. I told Tyreese I think they've made camp for the night."

"Likely," he said, though he looked tense.

To lighten the mood, she nodded at the tea cups. "Well aren't you domestic?"

"Fig'rd ya'd want it. Can ya do the honey, though?"

"Sure." She smiled. "Because it's _very_ complicated."

"Just like to watch ya stir."

Carol laughed. Was that his attempt at sexual teasing? If so, it was an endearing failure. She caught his confused eyes and her laughter faded. It was clear he didn't know why she was laughing. He'd meant what he said. He _did_ like to watch her stir. Daryl had been neglected his entire childhood. Having someone do something _for him_ – something as simple as stirring his honey into his tea – _meant_ something to him. "I'd love to stir in the honey for you."

He looked down at the countertop while she went to the pantry and got out the raw honey he'd picked up on the run to town. He looked up when she began stirring it in. "It's just…ya do it just right," he said.

"Well, I'm glad to know my talents come in handy."

"That ain't the only talent ya got."

She let out a sultry chuckle. "Really?"

He flushed. "Ain't what I meant!"

"No? You don't think I have any talent in _that_ area?"

"No! Yeah. I mean…" He seized the mug, drew it to himself, took a big sip, and then cursed.

"Let it cool," she warned him. "Want to sit on the couch?"

He nodded and followed her over. He was already in sweats and a white t-shirt – which was becoming his standard sleep uniform. She could see the goosebumps breaking out on the bare flesh of his arm and shoulders. She didn't know how he could stand going around sleeveless in late fall, but she wasn't going to ask him to stop. She liked looking at those arms.

When they were sitting side by side, he put his bare feet up on the coffee table. The tops were slightly black in the light that leaped from the fireplace. "Sorry. Need to wash those," he said, as though surprised by his own discovery, or maybe surprised that he cared about washing them. She knew he didn't care for _himself_.

"Did Sophia get to sleep all right?" she asked.

"Mhmhm. Worried 'bout everyone comin' home. Zach 'specially."

"She has a little crush on him, I think."

"Zach?" he asked, alarmed.

"A perfectly harmless schoolgirl crush. He's obviously too old."

"Told her she don't need no damn boys."

Carol smiled and leaned her head against his shoulder. "You're just jealous she might like some man better than you."

"Ain't jealous," he insisted.

She pulled back to look at him. "But I guess she got to sleep eventually?"

"Yeah. Read her nine chapters of that damn wrinkle book. Lotta big words in that one. Soph kept correctin' me."

"A Wrinkle in Time?"

He nodded. "Almost told her to read her damn self. But I didn't. Just took the correction."

"You're a good daddy." When the words were out, and Daryl's eyes widened in shock, Carol wished she could take them back. She couldn't believe she'd even _said_ them. She hadn't been thinking – they'd just come out. Daryl _had_ been playing daddy to Sophia, more than her own daddy ever had. And he was sweet to her. But she hadn't meant to say it, not like that. It implied something about the permanency of their relationship neither had spoken about. And it had clearly terrified him. "Want a blowjob?" she blurted out.

Now a different sort of surprise crept into his eyes. He blinked. "Uh…."

"I'd love to give you one."

"Hell yeah!" He slammed his tea cup down so hard on the coffee table that the tea sloshed out onto the surface.

Well, for all the ways Daryl didn't fit the mold, at least he was a predictable man in this _one_ regard. The distraction worked. He was grinning now. She'd never seen him _grin_ before. It was sweet and goofy and suddenly the offer she'd thrown out simply to make him forget her words was something she was actually looking forward to doing for him.

Carol wasn't disappointed by his reaction, either. Daryl's head slammed back against the bedroom wall when she began her efforts, and, at some point, she thought his knees were going to give out. A litany of appreciative words spilled out of his usually closed mouth in a husky murmur. She was at once a naughty, bad, and good – no – _goddamn good_ \- girl. She was _perfect_.

When she was done, looking embarrassed by his own profuse reaction, he hastily yanked his sweat pants up. He remained slumped against the wall, breathing hard, while she pulled off her clothes and crawled naked in bed. Eventually, still clothed himself, he joined her. She scooted up next to him, face to face, and he dipped his head against her shoulder. Still a little breathy, he murmured, "Thank you."

 _Thank you._

Carol soaked up his gratitude. "You're welcome."

"Why ya so damn good at that?"

She tensed. "You don't want to know."

The truth was, Ed often demanded her attentions that way, but half the time he was too drunk to make it to completion. He'd always blame her. She didn't know what she was doing. She wasn't good enough. She was a cold fish. Carol had done her research, studied carefully, hoping all the time to make the process quicker. It had gotten better, but sometimes Ed was just too drunk, and the blame remained. So when she'd started in on Daryl tonight, she'd had some lingering trepidation about her ability, but he'd quickly allayed her fears with his reaction.

Daryl apologized for asking and wrapped his arms around her.

Carol pushed the past from her mind and thought of Daryl's vocal appreciation a moment ago, the feel of his eager fingers in her hair and down the front of her shirt. She tingled. "My turn now?" she whispered almost shyly.

"Mhmmm. Whatchya want?"

"Same thing."

In the light of the oil lamp, his eyes widened almost as much as they had when she'd told him he was a good daddy. "You don't like doing that?" she asked. Ed had never offered, and she'd never asked. She hadn't _wanted_ it from him, but she thought that Daryl, given his eagerness to please her, would be willing. She'd heard women liked it, and she wanted to experience it at least once in her life.

"Dunno. Ain't never…." His eyes flitted away.

"I don't think it's that difficult. You just…you know. Use your tongue instead of your fingers. It'll be new to me, too," she assured him. "I probably won't even know if you're doing it wrong."

"A'ight. Try it. Slap me upside the head if'n ya don't like it."

Carol giggled, but she stopped when he began working his slow, tantalizing way down, pausing to pay careful attention to each of her breasts. She might not have known if he was doing it wrong, but she figured he _must_ be doing it righ, becuse she shuddered for a long time afterward, as she lay spooned against him, until he finally asked, "I done good?"

"Mhmhm." She rolled over to kiss him. "You done good."

Daryl rolled onto his back, and she settled with her head against his chest. Relaxed enough not to worry too much about the Terminus team camped out somewhere in the cold night, in a world of walkers and cannibals, she drifted off to sleep. She awoke with him still in the bed, turned away from her, but his back pressed against hers, his strong warmth heating the space beneath the blanket.

There was a knock on the door, and Daryl stirred. The sunlight streamed in through the slats in the closed, external shutters. Sophia's voice came through the door: "Breakfast's ready! I made grits!"

The blankets slid off of Carol as Daryl eased into a sitting position and plunked his feet on the floor. He rubbed his eyes. "Guess I better go be a good daddy and pretend it ain't too salty."

[*]

They were finishing up breakfast when there was a knock on the cabin door. When Carol opened the door, Tyreese was standing on the porch. He pointed to a pile of chopped firewood at the bottom of the stairs. "Special delivery. I've found a way to make myself useful now that the root cellar is done."

"You were up early chopping wood after keeping watch for three hours?" Carol asked.

"I never went to sleep. I couldn't. No sign of my sister or the others."

Carol frowned sympathetically. "You want to come in for some grits and some Sunny D? I can whip up some."

Tyreese smiled and nodded.

Daryl was checking his bow when they walked into the kitchen. "Goin' huntin'," he said. He paused very close to Carol, looked at her like he wasn't exactly sure how a couple was supposed to say goodbye, leaned in a little, and then leaned out without touching or kissing her. "See ya." He walked a few steps and turned. "Finish that wrinkly book tonight, Soph. Ya read to me this time?"

"Yeah," she said. "I can do that."

Daryl nodded and slipped out the door.

[*]

Since Zach was still gone, Carol took over the math lessons today, much to the chagrin of Carl and Sophia, who assumed they were getting the day off. Beth then worked on their writing with them, and "Coach Darlene" did some physical therapy with Sophia for her leg while also insisting that Carl do a series of jumping jacks, crunches, and push ups. The school day complete, the kids were released to play in the park.

Carol accompanied them and found Rick in the watchtower, casting occasional glances away from the road and treeline to Michonne, who was practicing forms with her katana as Andre played nearby in the sandbox.

Carol nodded to the sleekly beautiful woman, whose concentration did not break long enough to offer a reply. Michonne was quiet, and Carol wasn't sure when the woman would feel like a fixed part of the group. Zach had settled in quickly and already felt almost like a member of the original family. Tyreese was blending in. But, so far, Michonne kept mostly to herself. When she spoke, it was typically to Rick, which made sense, perhaps, because Rick had found her and they were both single parents. They had that bond, which Carol couldn't share with either of them. She _wasn't_ a single parent. Not anymore. Even Daryl had acknowledge that this morning. The memory of his words made her smile.

Michonne must have thought she was smirking at her, because she stopped. "The practice helps," she said. "It makes me quicker at killing them."

"I don't doubt it," Carol told her.

Michonne sheathed her sword on her back. She nodded over Carol's shoulder. "Your husband's back with something."

Carol didn't correct her word choice. It was an innocent assumption. She and Daryl lived together, after all. They _were_ together. They took care of Sophia together. As Michonne prowled over to the sandbox as gracefully as a panther, Carol turned and walked across the impacted mulch surface of the playground toward Daryl, who was emerging from the forest with some reptilian creature draped over his shoulders.

"Is that an alligator?" she asked when she was near him. She could smell the forest leaves on him, mixed with smoke – he must have lit up on his way back - and the musky scent of a man who had been hard at work. She felt a sudden sensation of sexual wanting that she wasn't used to experiencing so abruptly. She wanted to touch him, to slip her hand between the buttons of his shirt and shove her tongue into his mouth, but of course she didn't.

"Mhmhm. Found 'em in the pond."

"Do you think they're in the stream too?"

"Maybe," he said. "Turn up lots of places. Roscoe found one in his swimmin' pool one time."

"Roscoe had a swimming pool?" Carol asked doubtfully.

"One of 'em above ground ones. Big blue circle. Almost as big as the damn trailer. Ain't got no idea how the thing got in. Cain't climb a ladder. Reckon Merle put it in there to scare 'em."

"We've been swimming and bathing in that stream."

"Well, that's why I said y'all need a look out."

"I thought that was just for the walkers." Carol shivered at the thought of an alligator suddenly emerging from the stream during one of their swims. For some reason, it scared her more than the thought of a walker. Walkers she'd killed. Alligators she had not. "Does it really taste like chicken?"

"Ain't never had it?" he asked in surprise.

She shook her head.

"Like chicken n' fish both. Firm like pork."

He began walking toward the picnic table outside the smokehouse, which had become the new butcher's table. "Carl," he called. "Soph! C'mon over and learn how to skin a gator!"

Carl looked more reluctant than Sophia. The boy crinkled his nose as he jumped off the swing to follow Sophia over to the table. Carol noticed that Sophia left her cane on the ground, and that she was only limping a little as she made her way over. The weeks of therapy were working.

After helping Andre find a sand mold he'd buried, Michonne walked over to stand next to Carol, who was watching Daryl and the kids from a distance. "How can I contribute?" Michonne asked. "I can't stand guard until I learn to shoot better. Rick's promised to teach me. But until then...what? I've never been much of a cook. I'm good at killing walkers quickly and quietly, but you don't seem to need that here. I don't want to leave Andre to go on supply runs. So what _can_ I do?"

"Paint!" Andre shouted. Carol jumped a little because she hadn't seen him walk up. The little boy was quiet, and this was in fact the first time she'd heard him say a word at all. She had thought maybe he was in shock from watching his father devoured, except that he seemed to play contentedly.

"I don't think anyone cares about my artistic skills here, Dre-Dre."

"How do you feel about laundry?" Carol asked.

Michonne smiled. When she did, she looked suddenly, glaringly personable. She looked like an entirely different person. "Probably the same way you do. But I'm willing to help."

"Roscoe's SUV!" Rick shouted from the watchtower. He put down his rifle and looked through the binoculars. "And the pick-up."

The sound of engines soon followed Rick's cry. T-Dog, who had been neatly stacking fresh firewood by the big cabin, strolled toward the road. Tyreese, who had finally fallen asleep in a rocking chair on the front porch of his cabin, jolted awake and jogged heavily to greet the vehicles. The front door of the big cabin opened, and Darlene and Beth clamored out.

"How many people?" Carol called. "Can you see? All six?"

Rick was silent for a while. "Actually," he called back, "There's _eight_."


	58. A Tale of Woodbury

By the time the SUV and pick-up pulled to a stop before the defensive line of cars, everyone was lined up and waiting. Daryl had his crossbow unshouldered and a finger just above the trigger. He assumed they were friendlies, but he wanted to be ready just in case things were not as they seemed. He noted, with some pride in her good sense, that Carol's hand was likewise on the butt of her pistol and that she'd already undone the strap of her holster.

Maggie and Glenn spilled out of the front seat of the pick-up. Two strangers sat in the back. The woman had long, curly brown-hair and an Italian complexion, and the bald black man looked like someone Tyreese could eat two of for lunch.

Zach leaped out of the backseat of the SUV, and Beth ran to him and flung her arms around him. After she did so, she pulled away, trying to downplay her obvious relief that he was alive, but it was too late. Zach's face was already plastered with a grin.

Sasha slid out of the front passenger's side of the SUV and was embraced by her brother. Roscoe emerged from the driver's side, his cowboy hat tilted down over his eyes. That was when Daryl realized Andrea wasn't in the backseat. Someone else was there instead - another black man.

The three strangers emerged cautiously from the two vehicles.

"Morgan?" Rick called in shocked recognition. Then he laughed and jogged to the man, who was drawing a staff out of the back seat of the SUV. Morgan stood straight and nodded solemnly to Rick as he came to a stop.

"Your son?" Rick asked.

Morgan shook his head. "Lost him. I came to Atlanta looking for you, but it was burned. I stayed with another survivor until he died, and then I struck out again. I was headed to Terminus yesterday when I heard the warning on the radio, so I changed course. I camped out for the night, and I found Zach the next morning."

"We camped in the woods last night, too," Zach explained. "To get off the highway. I was going to take a piss before everyone else woke up. Morgan snuck up on me. I heard him and thought he was a walker at first. I was turning around to shoot when I got his staff to my gut." He rubbed his stomach. "But then we worked it out."

Morgan nodded to Carl, who had come to stand cautiously beside his father. "You found your family?"

Rick put an arm around Carl's shoulders. "Yes. But my wife died."

"The Tao says that if you die without loss, you are eternal." Morgan shook his head. "None of us are eternal."

"You know this man?" Carl asked.

Rick nodded. "This is Morgan. He saved me, in the beginning, when I had no idea what was going on."

When there was a pause in this exchange, Daryl shouldered his crossbow and asked, "Andrea?"

Glenn shook his head sadly. Roscoe, whose face was tipped to the ground, gritted his jaw.

"On the way home," Maggie said, "we had to detour because of a herd. Then we met some car blockage on the new route. While we were moving the cars...I guess she didn't check one well enough before getting in to steer it. There was a live walker in the back. It bit her on the shoulder. She killed it, but there was no way to amputate that high up. She…" Maggie blinked. Her throat bobbed. She was clearly holding back tears. Glenn pulled her into his embrace.

"She asked us to shoot her," Sasha finished. "To end it quickly before she turned."

Daryl didn't ask which of the five of them had been given the grim task of putting Andrea out of her misery, but if he had to guess, his money was on Sasha, although Roscoe looked the most upset. He couldn't imagine Roscoe shooting a person, though.

"Buried 'er," said Roscoe, his eyes on the ground. "Near Athens."

Sophia, hearing all this, sniffled. Daryl put a hand lightly on her shoulder. He wasn't sure if that's what a good daddy was supposed to do when his girl was sniffling, but it seemed to help. Sophia sunk into him and buried her face against his side.

"And these two?" Carol asked, nodding over Roscoe's shoulder to the man and woman who were creeping cautiously forward.

Sasha waved the strangers forward and introduced the woman first. "This is Karen. She used to be a teacher, so she can help educate the kids. She also used to run the community garden for her town, so she can help with growing food. And she can shoot."

"Sounds like a valuable asset," Tyreese said with a smile in her direction.

"We found her on our way back, a little outside of Senoia," Sasha continued. "She was out on the road alone, in a sedan that had broken down. She was fleeing some camp called Woodbury. She'll tell you about it over dinner."

"Bit of a Terminus-style story," Glenn said. Maggie had recovered herself and was now standing slightly apart from him.

Michonne shifted little Andre on her hip. "More cannibals?" The child squirmed, and Michonne let him loose. Sophia pulled away from Daryl, swiped at her eyes, and then followed the little boy like a mother hen.

"More lunatics, anyhow," Roscoe told her.

"And this one's Bob," Sasha said, putting a hand on the man's shoulder. "We found him near Senaca. He was the last survivor of his group."

Bob looked off toward the trees, his lips a grim line.

"He's a decent shot," Sasha told them, "and he used to be an army medic."

"Good," Darlene said. "Now everyone don't have to worry 'bout me dyin' so much."

"Oh, baby, that's not the only reason we worry about you dying," T-Dog told her. Then he grinned teasingly. "You've got other skills."

"I know you respect my other skills," Darlene told him, and then slapped on the ass. He chuckled.

Bob's eyes narrowed at them like he thought it was bizarre that anyone should be smiling or laughing or teasing in this world.

Rick introduced Morgan to everyone next. "Don't know what skills you can list for me," Morgan said. He had a soft voice, Daryl thought, strangely calm. "I know martial arts now, but you seem to have a pretty secure spot here."

"We can work on our forms together," Michonne told him, which caused Rick to glance from one to the other. However dense Daryl might be when it came to romance, he had heightened sense of alert when it came to trouble, and he hoped that glance didn't spell trouble.

"We'll find something for you to do," Rick told Morgan. He nodded toward the goods in the back of the pick-up and asked. "What did y'all find?"

Sasha led Rick over, and Daryl and Carol trailed him. Carol's mouth fell open when she saw the two large brown bushels. "Are those fresh apples?"

"We found an orchard," Sasha said. "There were only a few wallkers bumbling around, so we killed them and went apple gleaning. Most of the crop had fallen by now, and a lot of it was already worm-infested, but we got two clean bushels. Not sure what we're going to do with them all before they spoil, but Roscoe said you'd know."

Daryl looked at Carol hopefully. "Apple pie?"

"I'll make two apple pies tonight," she told him with a soft smile. "And we'll have fresh apples for breakfast tomorrow. The rest maybe we can preserve for a few days in that root cellar Tyreese's and T-Dog dug, and if there's any left, I'll bake and can them for later."

Roscoe had wandered over now, and he leaned on the bed of the pick-up. "Andrea's the one spied the sign for the orchard on the way down. She was gonna..." He sighed. "She was gonna help us pick 'em on the way back."

Sasha put a hand on his back and patted it sympathetically. His lips winced into a partial smile. He titled his cowboy hat up off his head and changed the subject abruptly. "Look at my new turn table." He pointed at an old-fashioned, hand-cranked gramaphone, next to which was a cardboard box full of records. "Found it in the radio station museum."

"A one-room museum," Sasah said, "with ten exhibits." She shook her head. "Roscoe brained a walker with that thing on the way out."

"Antique craftmanship," Roscoe said. "Bet it'll still work. Blood'll clean right off the bottom."

There were several backpacks in the bed as well, which they'd just torn off of the walkers they'd slain outside the radio station. "We haven't rummaged through them yet to see what's good," Sasha said. "We just threw them in and headed out."

"Can me and Sophia do it?" Carl asked, like he was begging to open Christmas presents early. "Can we see what's good in them?"

"Mhmmm..." Rick said. "With _supervision_." He glanced at Carol. "If Sophia's mother approves."

"It might make them feel useful," she said. "And be fun for them. But _definitely_ with supervision."

[*]

Carol shook her head. "We can't just put all the newcomers together in one cabin. Karen just met those men _today_." The core group was conferring at the playground. "She won't be comfortable, the only woman, alone in a cabin with two strange men."

Darlene nodded her agreement. "Not even _I'd_ be comfortable with that."

"Winter comin'," Daryl said. "Three cabins still be easier to heat than four."

"It'll be easier to guard the whole camp from the watchtower if it's smaller, too," Rick agreed.

So Tyreese was booted from Sasha's room to the couch, and Karen was given the extra mattress in Sasha's room. Roscoe was booted from the couch in that cabin to the couch in Daryl and Carol's cabin. Morgan was assigned to the couch in the big cabin, and then there was the question of what to do with Bob. There was the extra bed in Beth's room, where Andrea had once slept, but obviously no one was going to let him room with her. So that bed was dragged into the master bedroom where Zach now slept, since Rick had abandoned the master and moved in with Carl after Lori died.

"Like fuckin' musical chairs," Daryl muttered as he helped Zach move the bed.

"You could have just put me in Beth's room," Zach reasoned, "and given Bob this one. Then we wouldn't have to move the bed."

Daryl abruptly dropped his end of the bed. It thudded.

Zach bent to catch and balance his end and slowly set it down. "I was _kidding._ "

"Kid with someone else." Daryl picked up his end of the bed again, and they settled it against the far wall, leaving a narrow aisle between the two beds.

"You're touchy, you know," Zach said as he stood straight. "Got to learn to relax. Maybe have a drink tonight. There's plenty in the pantry."

They'd decided to ration the alcohol - two alcoholic beverages per adult per week. Carol had made up a sign-out sheet for it with a little picture she'd doodled showing 5 oz of wine = 12 oz of beer = 1.5 ounce of liquor. Daryl hadn't known about that equivalence before. When he used to drink, which was nowhere near as often as his father had, he just drank out of the bottle.

"Don't need a damn drink," Daryl grumbled. "Just need people to stop irritatin' me."

"Well, my dad always used to tell me - son, you're in control of how other people make you feel."

"Really? So if I sock ya in the face right now ya ain't gonna feel it?"

"You should talk to Morgan about becoming more zen," Zach told him.

"I'm plenty zen," Daryl said. "I leap and the net appears."

Zach laughed. "Is that a real zen saying? Are you joking?"

"Ain't jokin'." Searching for Sophia was a leap. Taking her to Atlanta in hope of help from Darlene was a leap. Coming to these cabins was a leap. Loving Carol was the biggest leap of all, but, every time, the net _had_ appeared.

[*]

The smokehouse had done its job of preserving the rabbit Daryl caught yesterday, and, with some canned goods, some rice, and her own broth made of spices and water, Carol thinned it out into two pots of rabbit stew large enough to feed nineteen. Her days of cooking for the church fellowship dinners were coming in handy - they'd taught her how to serve large groups.

Thanks to the containers of salt from the diner, they had plenty to use in the meat curing process for the rest of the winter, and if Daryl got another deer, - and Carol trusted he eventually would - they could cut it up and age it in that smokehouse for weeks. Now if they could just manage to grow enough vegetables to store in the root cellar, they'd be on their way to a sustainable food supply. Maybe Karen's gardening skills would help there.

Roscoe came in the kitchen sniffing loudly. "Mhmhm, mhmhm, mhmhm! You are cookin' up somethin' fantastic, ain'tcha?"

"Something edible at least, I hope," she answered. "What do you think of the new friends you picked up on the road?"

"Think they ain't cannibals or murderers, which is a big check in my plus column. Reckon we'll get to know 'em better over dinner." He leaned over one of the pots and inhaled the scent. "When _is_ dinner?"

"Well, if you'd go tell my daughter and Carl to set the table, and you'd bring up two stools from the third cabin to put along the counter, it'll be ready then."

"Yes, ma'am!" He tipped his hat to her and, whistling, left the kitchen.

[*]

Carol did get to know the newcomers over dinner, except Bob, who would say little more than where he came from, what he used to do, and that his entire group had been wiped out - twice. It must be an awful thing, Carol thought, to be the last man standing. Morgan had some interesting stories to tell about meeting Rick and about a man with a jail cell in his cabin. And Karen told them about Woodbury.

"When the Outbreak started, I was living in a small town of just 580," she said. "I was a teacher in a two-room schoolhouse, and I ran the community garden. A lot of people died of the superflu, all at once. We were hearing horror stories about the epidemic, so we burned their bodies, and they never turned. We only ever saw a handful of those creatures. We killed maybe ten. Most people fled for Atlanta. They looted the corner grocery first. Thirty of us remained in town and lived off of our own stored food and the community garden for about three months. But then those creatures started coming up from the nearest city, and we got overrun. My brother and I got separated from the rest of the group and wandered for a while, until we found Woodbury."

"It's about 140 miles southwest of here," Sasha interjected. "We found her twenty miles outside of it."

"At first we thought we'd found an oasis in this ugly world," Karen continued. "They had running water, but also solar power. Houses. Fences to keep out the creatures."

"So why'd you leave?" Rick asked.

"Something just felt _off_ from the very beginning. Have you ever read the _Stepford Wives_?"

Carol shivered. "I have." It was the scariest book she'd ever read, maybe because it hit too close to home. Ed wanted to make her into the perfect wife, no matter the cost.

"I've seen the movie," Tyreese said. "You mean it felt fake? Creepy? Too good to be true? Like there was something sinister going on underneath the surface?"

Karen nodded. "Exactly. And at the end of our first week there, we saw the first clear sign of that. The man who ran the town - everyone just called him the Governor - invited the whole town to an _entertainment_. There were bleachers set up for us to sit on, and two men were fighting in a ring."

"A boxing match?" Tyreese asked.

"Except they didn't have gloves and it got really bloody. And they were using chained walkers to keep the men from walking away from the fight."

"Blood?" Andre asked. Michonne plucked him up and walked away with him.

Karen waited until they were clear of the kitchen. "It was unsettling," she continued. "The crowd seemed to be into it. Even my brother started to get into it. But it gave me the heebie jeebies. I walked away. The next day the Governor told me he really hoped I'd learn to be more of a _community player._ That night, there was a breach of the walls and a handful of those creatures got in. My brother was badly bitten. I was screaming for help, and no one was doing anything. Then the Governor just walked out of his house and shot my brother dead and walked back inside without a word. I guess I knew he needed to be shot. He wasn't going to survive the bite, and I hear people turn when they're bitten."

"They do," Rick assured her.

"But it was the _way_ the Governor did it. So coldly. So callously. Like he was swatting a fly. The next day I went to confront him about it. He didn't answer, but the door was unlocked, so I thought he was home. I walked in." She swallowed. "I found a room full of fish tanks. There were living, moving heads inside them."

"He kept walker heads?" Glenn asked with wide eyes.

"And there were human heads, too. Shot in the brain. Not turned."

Sophia looked sick to her stomach. Carl noticed, and Carol was grateful when the boy suggested, "We're done eating. Let's go play Stratego."

The kids fled from the table.

"There was a rattling in this locked closet," Karen said. "I was afraid he was keeping someone prisoner, so I broke down the door. He had one of those creatures chained up in there, a girl, turned. I don't know why. Maybe it was his daughter. Maybe he was waiting for a cure, but that, combined with everything else...I got spooked. I fled the house, I packed my things, and I talked one of the guards into letting me leave."

"They don't just let people in 'n out?" Daryl asked.

"I've never seen anyone forcibly stopped who wanted to leave, but the Governor says it's not safe for anyone outside, and the guards don't usually open the gate without the Governor's permission."

Roscoe scratched his head. "We just went on this mission to warn folk 'bout Terminus, and we lost Andrea. So if anyone's liberatin' Woodbury, ain't gonna be me. Just want to put that right out there."

"I don't think the people _want_ to be liberated," Karen said. "They've decided to accept whatever craziness is going on in exchange for food, power, and survival. But I think it's only a matter of time before that man snaps completely, or that place disintegrates into chaos. I couldn't stay there. I'd rather take my chances alone on the road, with those creatures, than live in a town run by a madman." She looked around the table. "But y'all seem sane. Which one of you is in charge?"

Glenn looked at T-Dog who looked at Darlene. Darlene looked at Carol who looked at Daryl, and Daryl looked at Rick.

"There's one thing you need to get straight," Rick told her. He looked from Karen to Morgan to Bob. "If you're staying, this isn't a dictatorship. No one person has the power or burden of leadership. We all advise each other. We discuss things. We come to agreement. We _all_ contribute. And that's how we stay sane."


	59. A Revelation and a Robbery

Carol knew it was only fair that they take in Roscoe. They couldn't maintain their private little three-person paradise forever. Still, she resented the intrusion. She liked Roscoe well enough, but she wasn't looking forward to having her quiet tea-drinking evenings with Daryl disrupted.

At the moment, however, Roscoe was hanging out in Sasha's cabin for a while, presumably to play the piano there, but Sophia thought it was because, "He _likes_ Ms. Sasha."

"Ain't everyone got to have a romance, you know," Daryl told her.

Carol knew this because she was sitting in the nearby living room listening to Daryl tuck in Sophia. Sophia had read to him from _A Wrinkle in Time_ , and now they were just talking.

"He can't be playing the piano _now_ ," Sophia reasoned. "Andre has to be asleep, and it's too loud. So he's probably just flirting with Ms. Sasha."

"Dunno 'bout that," Daryl said.

"She could end up with Mr. Morgan or Mr. Bob, though."

"What 'bout Mr. Rick?" Daryl asked. "Why don't he get no respect? How come he ain't on yer list, little matchmaker?"

"Because Sheriff Grimes likes Ms. Michonne," Sophia said.

Carol couldn't make out what Daryl said next. It was one of his grumble-growls.

"Well, I _knew_ you liked my mom," Sophia said defensively. "And I knew she liked you. And I was right about that. I was right about Glenn and Ms. Maggie. I was right about Zach and Beth."

"How come Glenn and Beth and Zach don't get no Mr. and Ms.?" Daryl asked.

"They aren't _really_ grown-ups."

Daryl snorted. "Glenn ain't but _Ms._ Maggie is?"

"He delivered pizzas."

Carol suppressed a laugh.

"Ya know, _I_ delivered pizzas for five months once."

"You did not!" Sophia said.

"Did too."

"On your motorcycle?" Sophia asked skeptically.

"Nah. Borrowed my cousin Billy Ray's car. Gave him a fifty percent cut of my tips for usin' his car."

"Did you get good tips?" Sophia asked. Carol was trying her hardest not to break down laughing. She couldn't picture opening her door to find Daryl standing there, with a pizza in his hands, and an angry look in his eyes.

"Women tipped me much better 'n men. Dunno why."

Carol knew why.

"Customer robbed me once," Daryl said.

"He _robbed_ you?" Sophia asked.

"Rough neighborhood. I'd of kicked his ass, but weren't worth it for the twenty-three dollars I had on me. Just told the pizza shop owner."

"Did he send the police to the guy's house?"

"Nah," Daryl said. "Just assumed I's lying' and I done stole it. Fired me on the spot."

"Asshole," Sophia said. Carol cringed. She was going to have to talk to her daughter about the colorful vocabulary she'd been picking up, because Daryl certainly never corrected her.

"Yeah, he was. Didn't want that job no more anyhow. After gas, and Billy Ray's cut, only made me three dollars an hour."

"So what did you do after that?"

"Mowin' lawns. Reckon you don't think that's a grown-up job neither."

"Grown-ups do whatever they've got to do to pay the bills," Sophia said. "That's the grown-up thing to do."

"Tell ya a secret."

"What?" Sophia asked excitedly.

"I weren't a grown-up. I's only fourteen when I delivered pizzas."

"How could you even drive?" Sophia asked.

"Fake license. Don't you ever do that."

"I don't think I need a license to drive here. Will you teach me?"

"Sure. I mean. If it's okay with yer mama. Ya oughta learn soon. 'Case'n ya ever need to."

"Cool!"

Sophia might think it was cool, but Carol thought the fact that her twelve-year-old _needed_ to learn to shoot and drive was not cool. But Daryl was right. If Sophia ever needed to flee by vehicle – because the camp got overrun by walkers or bad men and she got separated from them - it would certainly be good if she knew _how_.

There were a few more murmurs Carol couldn't make out, and then Daryl emerged. He shut the door behind himself and took the few steps to the living room, where he slid down onto the couch and took hold of the cup of tea Carol had left him on the end table.

"Mind if I sit next to you?" she asked.

He jerked his head toward the empty spot next to him. She got up from the arm chair, sat down next to him, and eased against his side. "Want to put your arm around me?"

He did. She wondered when he would stop needing step-by-step instructions for showing ordinary affection. It didn't really bother her, because she understood Daryl wasn't used to it. Carol was more so. True, Ed had only been affectionate when he wanted sex, and even then only for the first few years. After a while, he hadn't even bothered with that. But she'd had Sophia's affection for years, and, as a girl, until she'd died, she'd had her mother's. On occasion, she'd even had her father's.

Carol was glad to feel the tension in Daryl's arm eventually relax. He even let it slip down until his hand was resting lightly on her hip. She lay her head on his shoulder. "Thank you for tucking her in tonight. She likes it when you do that. I like it."

"Knock, knock!" came Roscoe's voice as the front door crept open. Carol had left it unlocked for him.

Daryl's arm vanished. Carol felt its loss immediately. He put a good inch between them on the couch. Roscoe dropped his pack on the living room floor and leaned his guitar against the arm chair. "Get my other guitars from that cabin tomorrow." He sat down, and Carol offered him tea. "Why, yes, ma'am that would be delightful."

When Carol brought the tea back to Roscoe, Daryl stood. "Gonna go batten down the shutters."

"These cabins must be Georgia's best kept secret," Roscoe said as Daryl headed for the front door and Carol settled back on the couch.

"And we're trying to keep it that way," Carol reminded him. "Did you cover up your tracks toward the bottom?"

"Mhmhm. Best we could, for the first visible stretch."

"Good. Not everyone in this world is friendly. And even if they are, I don't know how many people we can feed."

"Couldn't just leave those three alone on the road."

"I know," Carol said. "But it's a heavy weight to be on only Daryl's shoulders – hunting for nineteen people."

"Well, Darlene can hunt a little. And Sasha told me she used to go duck huntin' with her daddy in Florida. Got any shotguns in your arsenal?"

"We'll see Sasha gets one." Carol was curious about Daryl's background, but she wouldn't pain him by prying into it. Now, however, was her chance to get something out of Roscoe. "I never would have guessed you were Merle's half-brother. You don't act anything alike."

Roscoe dipped his tea bag up and down. "Raised different. Hated bein' rejected by my own daddy, but, in retrospect, I was probably lucky. He wasn't much to look up to. My mama was a piece of work, too, but she took off when I was real little. But my grandmama, who _did_ raise me, I daresay she was a queen among women. And when I moved to Nashville, I found the same things that worked in the backwoods didn't precisely work there. Which I suppose was good, because I never had much talent for snarlin' and fightin'. Merle was a fighter."

"Was Daryl?" Carol asked.

"Daryl was a consummate master of the snarl. He didn't _have_ to fight half the time. He just had to snarl."

Carol chuckled.

"Don't really recall Daryl fightin' 'cept to defend himself and other folk. Clevus – that's their uncle – mine, too, I suppose - always said – _don't start, finish_. Sunk in with Daryl. Not so much with Merle. Merle was _always_ startin' fights. Me, I neither started nor - alas - finished."

"What did your Uncle Clevus look like?" Carol asked. It didn't matter - all those people were dead - but Carol's curiosity got the better of her. She couldn't help but wonder if Darlene's theory of paternal lineage was correct.

"Well…" Roscoe stopped dipping his tea bag up and down in his cup. "Well, a lot like Daryl does now, come to think of it, 'cept Clevus was about three inches taller." The front door of the cabin opened and closed. When he came into the living room, Roscoe said, "Hey, Daryl, just figured somethin' out. Don't know why it didn't occur to me before."

"'S that?" Daryl sat down on the couch one cushion away from Carol and began to yank off his boots.

"We ain't half brother's after all. We're cousins."

"Hell ya figure that?"

"'Cause we had different mamas _and_ different daddies. Will Dixon wasn't really your daddy. Clevus was."

Daryl's boot hit the leg of the coffee table. "Hell ya sayin'? That my mama was a cheat?"

"Uh…Well…ain't like she had the ideal husband."

"Ain't true! Cain't be true! Loathe that dumb ass 'til the day I die, but Will Dixon damn well was my daddy. Now you watch yer fuckin' mouth when you talk about my mama!"

Roscoe held up a hand in a defensive gesture. "Didn't mean nothin' bad by it. I swear."

Daryl picked up his kicked off boots. He grumbled his goodnight and stomped off to the master bedroom.

Roscoe shook his head. "Touchy fellow. You haven't tamed him as much as I thought."

Carol set her tea down and gestured to the blankets and pillow on the other end table. "Those are for you. You have a good night now, Roscoe."

"You too. I'll get the cups to the sink."

Daryl was pacing barefoot in front of the closed-up window when Carol entered. A haze of seeping starlight outlined his form. She searched blindly for the matches on the top of the nightstand and struck one to light the oil lamp. When its blue-yellow flame glowed out against the darkness, he stopped pacing. She turned to face him. "You were a bit rude to Roscoe just now."

Daryl's teeth found his thumbnail.

Carol took a few cautious steps closer, but not too close, and rested a hand on one of the posts of the canopy. She felt a little guilty for her earlier curiosity, which had provoked Roscoe into realization, and then made him say the thing that upset Daryl. But she was also irritated at her own feelings of guilt. She shouldn't _have_ to walk on egg shells. A couple should be able to talk about things like their pasts, to be able to ask the occasional question without fear of setting the other one off. And they _were_ a couple now, weren't they?

"Maybe Roscoe is wrong about your uncle being your father. But…why does the suggestion make you so _angry_?"

"'Cause my mama weren't a cheat!"

"She was a negligent mother, though, wasn't she?"

Daryl thudded back against the window. He crossed his arms over his chest.

"I don't think that's why you got angry at Roscoe. I wish I _did_ know why. I'd like to…" She shrugged. "I don't know what I'd like to do."

She'd like to take all the shattered pieces of his beautiful soul and glue them back into one complete whole again, but how could she, when she'd had to sew a dozen patches in her own just to keep it from tearing apart at the seams? She wanted to love him, however he needed to be loved. She wanted to know he could heal, because then that might mean she could heal, too.

Daryl was quiet for a while. She thought he'd retracted all the way into his shell, but then he said, "Clevus taught me to use the bow. Bought me my first rifle. Ain't never hit me _once_ in my whole life. Clevus _cain't_ be my daddy. 'Cause if he _was_ my daddy, why in the hell…." He bit down hard. A line jumped in his jaw before he worked his mouth loose enough to speak again. "Why'd he never claim me?" His voice cracked. "Take me out that damn cabin? Take me to live with him and Billy Ray? Why'd he just _leave_ me there?. Things could of been different. _I_ could have been different. If he was my daddy…" Daryl choked. "Then he didn't _want_ me to be his son. So he _couldn't_ of been."

Carol went to him and welcomed him into her arms. He bent his head against her shoulder. He wasn't crying – not tears – but he was shaking like a man might if he were crying. She could have tried to reassure him with words, but she didn't think that would help. She held him and raked her fingers softly through the soft strands of his hair until he stilled. He turned slightly to nuzzle her neck, and then pulled back enough to press his lips to hers.

Daryl had yet to initiate sex, but he did tonight. His fingers worked quickly on the buttons of her blouse and his hands greedily cupped and kneaded her breasts while he walked her back until her legs hit the bed.

Carol was used to having hurried sex with Ed when she didn't want it. She would simply go off somewhere in her mind while he took what he wanted, but this was completely different. Daryl's need was different – beyond physical – and Carol responded to it because she wanted to give. She let him claim her wordlessly and hungrily. She didn't protest when he rolled her on her stomach to take her from behind. If he couldn't be eye-to-eye tonight, she didn't need it, because she knew he needed this release - this acceptance of his need.

Carol didn't expect to come this time. This was a gift she was giving him. So when she did come, hard and quickly, she cried out as much in surprise as in pleasure, burying the sound in the pillow a moment too late. His own crash followed almost immediately, with a long, low groan, and he slumped spent against her back.

Daryl lay there for a moment before easing his weight off of her, laying his head on the pillow beside hers, and draping an arm across her lower back. His breath warmed her cheek as she caught her own.

He kissed her shoulder and finally spoke. "Sorry."

Carol rolled onto her side, so they were face to face, and kissed his forehead gently. "Why?"

"Forgot to ask what ya wanted."

"I'd have told you if I didn't want it." Carol felt a surge of self-pride to consider that her words were true. She _would_ have. She wasn't the old submissive Carol anymore. "It was good for me too. This way. This time." That last bit she added to make sure he knew that she didn't _always_ want it to be like that. She smiled at the realization that they could have a varied sex life, that it didn't always have to be _one_ way, the way it had been with Ed – his way. It could be _their way_ every time, and their way could change from night to night, could adapt to his needs and her needs. Tonight he'd needed to take, and she'd needed to give.

He bent his head and murmured something against her neck. She couldn't make it out. "What?"

He said it again, equally muffled, like he was trying to half-hide the admission, but she made out the words this time.

"I love you, too," she told him.

[*]

The next morning, Carol awoke to the sound of voices in the living room. Not Daryl and Sophia this time, but Daryl and Roscoe. She dressed and cracked open her door slightly, listening for a moment before emerging. They were talking about Clevus, with an exchange of "Remember that time…and remember that time…." She supposed Daryl had made his apologies, as much as Daryl could apologize to another man. She shut the door again and let them have their time. But when she heard a loud knock on the cabin door, she emerged.

Sophia was just dragging herself out of bed, and Daryl was answering with his handgun drawn. He holstered it when Rick stepped in. "There's something y'all need to see," the ex-deputy said.

Leaving Roscoe in charge of Sophia, Carol and Daryl followed Rick to the big cabin, where he stopped before a torn spot in the lattice beneath the porch and pointed at the empty liquor bottles below.

"Those ours?" Daryl asked.

Rick nodded.

"That's at least two week's worth of rations for the entire group," Carol said.

"Fuckin' frat boy!" Daryl growled. "Had me fooled. Thought he was gonna turn out to be a'right!"

Rick put a hand on his hip, just above where a badge might have been in his former life. "It wasn't Zach."

"Then who?" Daryl asked.

"There's only one person who isn't awake right now, one person who's still sleeping it off, and it isn't Zach."

"Then _who?"_ Daryl repeated, more testily this time.

"One of the new ones," Rick told him. "Bob."

"We need to decide how we're going to handle this," Carol said.

"Asshole stole from us! Gonna kick his ass is how we're gonna handle this!" Daryl made for the stairs, but Carol grabbed his arm. He let her. He took a step back toward Rick.

"I say we call a meeting and we make a judgment," Rick said.

"A meeting of who?" Daryl asked, clearly itching to address the problem with his fists.

"Well, that's a good question." Rick ran a hand across his mouth. "I think maybe it's time to form an official Council to govern this place. Say, five people. That way, there's always a tie breaker in any vote."

"Sounds like you've already decided you're on this Council," Carol told him.

"I haven't decided anything," Rick assured her. "Let everyone vote for their top five candidates, in order of preference, and we'll tally the votes and draw the Council from there."

"And everyone gets a vote?" Carol said.

"Well, not Andre. Or Carl. Or Sophia."

"Why not Sophia?" Daryl asked. "Ain't no reason the kids cain't vote. They oughtta have say in whose rulin' 'em."

"Kids don't get a say in who's in charge," Rick insisted.

"They ought to!" he spat.

Rick laughed dismissively, but also a little bit nervously. "All right. Fine. But not Andre. He's three. He doesn't even know everyone's name."

Daryl nodded. "A'ight. Let's get it done."


	60. One Council to Govern Them All

Rick's suggestion that the kids shouldn't get a vote had irritated Daryl because he'd never had a say when he was growing up. As soon as he _was_ old enough to choose – at seventeen – he had. He'd chosen to walk straight out of Will Dixon's house. And if, as a little boy, he could have chosen his own father, he would have chosen Clevus.

This morning, Roscoe had told Daryl that, in a way, Clevus _had_ claimed him. When Clevus came back from Kentucky to those Georgia backwoods and saw young Daryl – saw what he looked like - he'd gotten involved. He'd taught Daryl to shoot and hunt and fish along with his son Billy Ray. Maybe he hadn't wanted to be a homewrecker, Roscoe reasoned, hadn't want to start a family feud with his brother by trying to take Daryl and admitting what he'd done with Daryl's mother. Roscoe didn't know about the beatings, though. Maybe Clevus hadn't known either. Daryl had always hidden them well, as if he were cloaking his own shame. Maybe if he had simply _told_ Clevus...

But why regret any of that now? Whatever he'd been through, whoever he'd once been – that was gone. He'd walked away from his past when he'd walked away from Merle. He'd stepped into a new life and a new skin. He had Carol now. He had Sophia. He had the home he'd been afraid even to _dream_ of in his youth. How strange that just as the world fell apart, he finally came together.

Daryl clicked the end of the ballpoint pen down when he realized everyone else was already starting to fill in their ballots.

"Choose five," Rick explained, "and then we'll tally the votes. The five people with the most votes will serve on the Council. This way everyone can feel like they've had a say in who governs them."

Rick did not announce that the Council's first order of business would be deciding what to do about Bob's theft of the alcohol. Bob was sitting at a stool on the kitchen counter, his forehead leaned against his hand, looking tired. Rick had even included his name on the ballot, which read as follows:

_ Rick  
_ Michonne  
_ Daryl  
_ Carol  
_ T-Dog  
_ Darlene  
_ Glenn  
_ Maggie  
_ Morgan  
_ Karen  
_ Zach  
_ Beth  
_ Sasha  
_ Tyreese  
_ Roscoe  
_ Bob

"Can we vote for ourselves?" asked Glenn, and Maggie gave him a skeptical smile. "Or significant others?"

"Yes," Rick replied. "You can vote for any five people on the ballot. And it's anonymous. Just fold your ballots when you're done and stick them in here." He patted the edge of an empty serving bowl.

It hadn't occurred to Daryl to vote for himself. He wasn't a leader or a politician. He was in no position to judge anyone. He knew his job here – hunter and scavenger.

He checked off Rick's name first. He'd thought of Rick as a leader ever since the man had pulled a gun on him in Atlanta and calmly told him, "I won't hesitate." Maybe that was an odd way to come to respect a man, but Rick had kept Daryl from hurting anyone without hurting him. The ex-cop knew how to stay level-headed in a tough situation, how to talk people down, how to make quick decisions, and – most importantly - seemed content to carry the weight of leadership on his shoulders. Of course, Rick _had_ taken that brief trip to crazy town after Lori died, but he seemed stable now.

Next he checked off Carol's name. It wasn't because they were together. He would have wanted her on the Council even if they weren't. She was smart. She'd had a lot of great ideas lately, like those sleeves. She learned new things quickly - nowadays she could shoot well, stab, and butcher animals – all things she'd never done before. And there ought to be a loving mother on the Council, too, someone with a heart for those kids, someone who wouldn't let them be forgotten in the mix, the way he'd once been forgotten.

Next he checked off Darlene's name. She had too many skills not to be on the Council – shooting, lock-picking, and medicine. He trusted her competence when it came to survival, and he knew she wouldn't take shit from anyone. And, as badly as he'd once treated her, she still had his back.

The next two names were harder to choose. He didn't want to vote for anyone who wasn't with them when they settled the cabins. They were the founders of this paradise, and _they_ ought to rule it – but when he thought of leadership, he couldn't stop thinking of Sasha. He didn't know why, exactly, but some gut instinct told him she'd make a reasonable leader. Reluctantly, he checked off the outsider's name.

And now for the last slot. Tyreese could work a hammer, but he was a pansy who let his big sister lead him. Roscoe was a clown. His job was to amuse the children and the ladies. Beth was too young. Zach was too young. Michonne was still too much of an unknown to him, as were Morgan and Karen. That left Maggie, T-Dog, and Glenn.

Maggie struck him as competent and decisive, but she hadn't been with them since the beginning, like Glenn and T-Dog, and the Council needed another man besides Rick. This wasn't the Amazon jungle. He liked Glenn well enough. The kid had some clever ideas here and there – his plan for getting the guns in Atlanta, for one – but he still struck Daryl as a little green. T-Dog was as reliable as a rock, but about as deep, too. He wasn't dumb - not at all – but Daryl couldn't remember the man ever having a truly original idea. He had a moral backbone, though, that ran deep. Hell, the guy had collected people in the church van when it all started. He'd come with Daryl to find Merle, even after Merle had called him a nigger and tried to beat him to a pulp. Daryl might not have "spoken his language" back then, but he understood the root words - honor and courage. In a world where survival was easier without a conscience, T-Dog had always dared to follow his. Any council could probably use a pestering voice of conscience.

"Daryl, man, we're waiting on you," Rick said.

Daryl checked off T-Dog's name, folded up his paper, and tossed it in the bowl.

"Can I tally them?" Sophia asked.

Rick shrugged and pushed her the bowl of papers, and Carol handed her a notebook. Sophia wrote every candidate's name down in a long list, shook the bowl, and then pulled the first ballot out. She made a tally mark next to each selected name and then moved on to the next ballot.

When she was done, she read out the top five names.

"You must have counted wrong," Rick said. "That can't be right."

"Let me do it," Carl insisted, drawing the ballots to himself like a man collecting the winning pot of chips in a poker game. He took the notebook and redid the tally. "No," he said. "Sophia's count was right. That's the council."

[*]

Rick looked over Sophia's shoulder and asked, " _Fourteen_ votes for Carol?" Rick asked.

That meant all but four people had voted for her. By the expression on his face, Carol guessed Rick had _not._ To be fair, Carol hadn't voted for Rick either. She thought he'd been too erratic since Lori's death. He'd also insisted on going to the CDC instead of the cabins, which had turned out to be a waste of time. And a niggling feeling haunted her that Rick was more power hungry than he wanted to admit to himself.

"Yep," Sophia and Carl said together.

"That's what you get when you promise to put a chicken in every pot," Roscoe said with a smile.

Carol had enough confidence now to think she might get on the Council, but she hadn't expected to receive so much support. She'd thought she might squeak on in last place, with the help of her own vote. A guilty pleasure had tickled her spine as she checked off her own name. How many years had she refused to vote for herself, so to speak, always submitting to Ed? She'd spent too long allowing herself to be ruled by a man, and she didn't want to submit herself to a Council of Men now. In fact, except for Daryl, she'd voted entirely for women: herself, Darlene, Maggie, and Sasha.

Sasha was new, but she'd clearly been the leader of her little group of three when she arrived. She'd gotten herself and her brother alive all the way from Jacksonville. She'd taken Roscoe under her protection, which meant she was compassionate as well as competent. She'd gone on the mission to warn against Terminus, and likely led the group in its successful quest.

"And Sasha got the second most votes," Carl confirmed. "Eleven. Then Daryl with ten."

Carol's heart tightened at the expression on Daryl's face when Carl confirmed that number. She'd heard men say, "I feel honored" a hundred times, as if they were reciting a required cliché, but she'd never seen those words etched sincerely in a man's eyes before.

Carol had voted for Daryl, of course. Sometimes he acted on impulse, a slave to his emotions, and he had to be held back for a moment until he could accept sense, but he was much smarter than he gave himself credit for. He knew more about surviving in the wilderness than any of them. Daryl was the one who had taken charge of the search party when the men returned to the quarry. He was the one who had found her and Lori and the kids. He was the one who had decisively rescued Sophia, and then just as decisively brought her to Darlene. And he was the one who had led them to these very cabins. Daryl had every right to be on that Council, and she clearly wasn't the only one who thought so. She was glad he had this chance to see how respected he was.

"Then Darlene and Maggie both got nine," Carl confirmed. "You got eight, Dad. T-Dog and Glenn both got seven. Zach got four – "

"- Zach?" Rick asked.

Zach beamed and Beth smiled.

"Roscoe got three," Carl said.

"Thank you, children." Roscoe tipped his hat to Sophia and then Carl. "And young lady." He nodded to Beth. "Y'all flatter me."

"I didn't vote for you," Sophia told him.

"Me neither," said Carl.

"You mean some grown-ups actually did?" Roscoe asked. "Well, I'll be damned." He looked across the table at Sasha. "Was it you, brown sugar? Couldn't resist my sheer alpha maleness?"

Sasha chuckled.

"I think I know why you _really_ voted for me." Roscoe wagged a finger at her. "You're a fine Machiavelli. You figured if you didn't win, and I won because of my irresistible charm, I could be your puppet on the Council."

" _If_ I did vote for you," Sasha told him, "and I'm not saying whether I did, it would have been because you came up with a great plan for warning people about Terminus, and because you have useful ideas about electricity."

"Oh." Roscoe sounded genuinely surprised by her respect.

"And uh... Karen got one vote," Carl concluded. "Nobody else got any votes."

It was no surprise that the relative newcomers, who had all been discovered alone, hadn't been on anyone's slate. Carol didn't think Karen had voted for herself, though, judging by the surprised look on her face and the bashful one on Tyreese's. He'd thrown that vote her way, as if maybe he thought he was voting for Ms. America instead of the people who were going to govern his life at the end of the world.

"Maybe the kids shouldn't have been given a vote," Rick suggested. "What would the slate be if we took out the kid's ballots?"

"Those votes were anonymous!" Sophia insisted.

Michonne shot Rick a warning look. "What do you _think_ would happen to _your_ tally if you threw out your _son's_ vote?"

Rick put a hand on his hip and looked uneasy.

"Carol, Sasha, Daryl, Darlene, and Maggie," the young Grimes repeated. "Those are the top five. _That's_ the Council."

Roscoe looked in Daryl's direction and chuckled. "Well what do you know? There's a rooster in the henhouse!"

Daryl blinked.

"Exactly," said Rick. " _Four_ women? That's not representative of the demographics."

" _You're_ the one who came up with this plan for voting," Carol reminded him.

"But one man to represent eight?" Rick asked.

"If you include Andre, there's only one black person representing seven," T-Dog said with a good-humored smile. "I mean, if you want to lodge an equal opportunity complaint."

"And no kids at all," Sophia noted. "Out of four kids."

" _Three_ kids," Beth corrected her.

"No artistic types either I noticed," said Roscoe, "like me or Beth or Michonne." He winked at Michonne, who gave him an indulgent smile.

Rick paced behind Carl and Sophia's chairs and peered over his son's shoulder at the count. For a moment Carol feared he was going to demand yet _another_ recount, or say they should forget the Council and continue flying by the seat of their pants without a government of any kind.

But Rick didn't. Instead, he sighed, shook his head, and then said, "Well, y'all better convene. I think you know what your first order of business is." He didn't turn his head, but he turned his eyes toward Bob.


	61. Arguments

The Council convened in the living room of the upper cabin. Bob was summoned, and when he was questioned about the alcohol, he confessed. "I only meant to sneak one drink," he swore. "To calm my nerves. You have to understand. I lost the last person in my group two days ago. I watched him die."

"You ain't the only one who's lost people," Darlene said. "We all have. But we don't all go bitin' the hand that feeds us."

"He was the _last_ person in my group." Bob's eyes pleaded with Sasha, Maggie, and Carol, but he avoided Daryl's gaze. "And that was the _second_ group I _completely_ outlived. I just needed to calm my nerves a little. But then…one drink became two…two became three, three became four…"

Daryl clenched his jaw. "And four became ten?"

"I'm ashamed," Bob said. "I'm sorry. And it won't happen again."

"How often do you drink like this?" Carol asked.

"Not…you know…often," Bob answered hesitantly. He looked guilty, embarrassed, and a bit scared. "I don't find that much alcohol that often."

Daryl thought of those bodies in the diner, of Andre's father, consumed because he'd been high. Andre would have been killed if they hadn't shown up. "How many in yer group died 'cause you were too damn drunk to fight for 'em?"

"None!" Bob insisted. "I swear. I didn't even drink until after I lost the first group. And the second…I was sober when we got overrun. I wouldn't have gotten out if I wasn't."

They dismissed Bob to confer. Daryl stood with an arm draped across the mantle. "Say we kick 'em out. Let the thievin' bastard take his chances on the road."

"That seems a little extreme," Carol countered. "Alone? In this world? It's essentially a death sentence."

"No it ain't!" Daryl hadn't meant to raise his voice, but he'd left his own brother alone on the road in Kentucky. He never would have done it if he thought he was sentencing Merle to death.

Carol, like she so often did, seemed to understand why he was upset. She spoke softly. "I just mean it might be for _Bob_."

Daryl lowered his voice. "Was in the army, right? Be fine."

"He was an army _medic_ ," Sasha said. "Not a one-man fighting machine."

"Survived just fine so far," Daryl argued. "Last one standin' in his group."

"Exactly," Maggie replied. "He was the lone survivor out of his entire group – twice. No wonder he's hit the bottle hard. He's probably got survivor's guilt."

"We're _all_ survivors," Darlene interjected. "Some of us have even had to _kill_ people. That ain't no excuse for robbin' the people who were kind enough to take you in."

"I didn't say it was an _excuse_ ," Maggie said. "Just an explanation."

"How many weeks' worth of alcohol rations did he drink?" Sasha asked.

"We were allotting two drinks a week to stretch it through the whole winter," Carol said, "so about five weeks' worth."

Darlene whistled.

"Then maybe we say he has to go without any alcohol for five weeks," Sasha suggested, "to make up for what he already drank. And if he can prove he can do that, he can stay."

"Once a drunk always a drunk," Daryl muttered.

"That's not fair," Maggie insisted. "And it's not _true_."

Daryl flicked at a used match on the mantle. It skidded a few inches. "Ya ain't never had a drunk for a daddy."

"As a matter of fact," Maggie told him, "I _did_."

Daryl turned his head to meet her eyes.

"My father was an alcoholic for years," she explained. "It nearly destroyed his marriage. But he got clean and sober. Maybe Bob can, too. "

"Doubt Bob's gonna get sober just 'cause we _say_ he has to."

"No one gets sober overnight," Maggie replied. "But he can change, if he wants to. Meanwhile, we should move the alcohol out of the main cabin. Maybe to your cabin here, and then lock it up."

"Not a bad idea," Darlene said with a smirk. "Either Bob'll stop touchin' the stuff, or he'll break into Daryl's cabin in the middle of the night to get it, and Dary'll kill him. Either way, the problem resolves itself."

"So he gets a free pass?" Daryl swung his arm off the mantle and stepped forward. "Move it, lock it up, tell 'em it's okay long as he don't do it again. 'Cept he _cain't_ do it again, 'cause it's here. And nothin' happens to 'em for stealin' from us?"

"What would you _propose_ happen?" Carol asked him.

"Somethin' more than nothin'!"

"What are the least popular chores here?" Sasha asked.

"Laundry." Carol answered so quickly and decisively that Daryl realized she outright hated the task, even though she'd been washing his clothes for weeks without complaint. "We could make Bob do the laundry for a while."

"Don't know if I want a man washin' my skivvies," Darlene said. "How 'bout if Bob does _all_ the _men's_ laundry, _and_ all the dishes after dinner, every night, for five weeks, as penance. Then we can spread those chores out."

"Sounds reasonable to me," Maggie said.

"Me too," Carol agreed. "It would cut my laundry load in half."

"I'm fine with it." Sasha looked at Daryl.

"Ooooh!" he said sarcastically. "The bad man has to wash dishes! Roscoe was right. Damn henhouse in here."

"So you don't think any of us should be on the Council because we're _women_?" asked Sasha, bobbing her head in angry challenge.

"Ain't what I said. Hell, I voted for three of ya."

Sasha's surprise was written in her eyes.

"Daryl," Darlene said. "Be reasonable. What do you want to do? Chop off his hand for thievin'? Banish him, when who knows if he can survive out there?"

"Didn't have no problem banishing my _brother_ , did y'all?" He didn't mean to sound so angry, but he was feeling guilty about abandoning Merle now. He thought he'd gotten past the feeling, and here it was again. If everyone thought banishing Bob was so awful, how awful was the thing he'd done to his own flesh and blood?

"Merle didn't just get into a little alcohol," Darlene said. "He beat T-Dog, pulled a gun on all those people in Atlanta, and tried to take over. Later he held a gun to a pregnant woman's head. Do you appreciate the distinction?"

"'Preciate Merle was a loose cannon," Daryl said. "Reason I left 'em in Kentucky." He'd had to do it, he knew, for the sake of his people here, for the sake of Carol, for the sake of Sophia. For the sake of the life he had now. "Left him even though he's _my_ blood." At least half, anyhow. If Clevus was his father, then Merle was only his half-brother. "But this guy? Maybe he's a loose cannon, too. We don't _know_ him. All we know _for sure_ is he's a thief and a drunk. Y'all are bein' too soft. "

"Daryl, sweetheart, I think you're outnumbered on this one," Carol told him.

 _Sweetheart?_ She'd never called him that before. And she'd just said it in front of everyone, too. He blinked. Was she talking about _him?_

 _Sweetheart?_

That was something a woman called a man who was actually boyfriend material, not a simmering cauldron of guilt and irritation with a two-inch fuse on his temper. He stepped back until he was leaning against the wooden wall of the cabin. He took a moment to wait for that fuse to go flat out. Then he nodded. "Fine. Four to one. We do it the way all y'all want."

[*]

The verdict was delivered, the alcohol moved, and Bob went to work on the laundry. Over the next few hours, the Council solicited input from the community, assigned jobs for the next few weeks, scheduled the watch, and reviewed food rations for the winter. They called in Roscoe to explain his plan for wiring together those motorcycle batteries they'd snagged from the repair shop to power the electric space heaters and the water pumps, and then they assigned Glenn to help him.

"Sophia might want to help, too," Carol said. "She used to love to play with those circuit sets." That was, until Ed had stepped on one she'd left on the floor, cursed, and snapped them all into pieces.

Karen came before the Council to suggest they build a community greenhouse for the winter, like she'd had in her small town. The Council organized a construction team of T-Dog, Tyreese, and Morgan to build it, and agreed that Rick, Karen, and Maggie would be "the agricultural team." They would also prepare additional large garden plots in the earth between the cabins to be used in the spring and fall.

Michonne told the Council about the insulating paint she'd found in one of the storage sheds. "It will help keep the cabins warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer." Zach and Beth were assigned to help her paint.

The Council established a hunting schedule that would take some of the weight off of Daryl. Darlene and Sasha would help him by bird hunting together twice a week.

"We're gonna miss Andrea's fish, though," Roscoe said at dinner that night, and Beth told him Andrea had been teaching her and that she'd happily take over the job. Morgan offered to stand watch while she fished.

"Carol needs more help in the kitchen," Daryl said between bites. "Spends hours cookin' everyday for everyone."

"I'll help," Carl said. "I always wanted to be a chef when I grew up."

Rick looked at him skeptically, but then he said, "That's a good idea, son. You and Sophia should both help, learn some cooking skills. After all, you're the future."

 _The future_ , Carol thought. It was the first time she'd thought it since the collapse of the world. For a moment, she dared hope there might actually be one.

[*]

Carol, glad to have Bob cleaning up the kitchen tonight, sunk down in an armchair in the living room of the big cabin, her belly full of alligator casserole. Michonne was handing strips of newspaper to Rick to feed the fire, Daryl was fiddling with his crossbow, and Roscoe was strumming his guitar.

"This is the song that never ends," Roscoe sang as little Andre stood drumming on the coffee table. The Stratego board shook. Sophia, who was sitting on the floor opposite Carl, straightened one of her playing pieces. "It goes on and on my friends. Some people started singing it not knowing what it was. And it'll go on forever just because…" Roscoe drew in a deep breath, stilled his hand in the air, and looked at Andre, who stopped drumming. Andre's soft brown eyes grew wide, and he raised his hand high above the coffee table. "This is the song that never ends!" Andre squealed and slammed his hand down on the coffee table as Roscoe resumed. "It goes on and on my friends!"

"Would ya cut that out?" Daryl grumbled.

"The baby likes it," Roscoe said.

"Ain't a baby. He's _three_."

"The three year old likes it. Don't ya, Dre?"

Andre said, "Sing!" and Roscoe resumed the song: "Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was…."

Daryl threw a despondent look at Carol. She smiled, and, unable to resist teasing him, started enthusiastically signing along: "And it'll go on forever just because…."

Carl and Sophia, giving up on their game now that Andre's violent drumming had scattered the pieces all over the board, sang-shouted, "This is the song that never ends!"

Now Michonne and Rick joined in: "It goes on and on my friends!"

Daryl grumbled something as he headed for the front door, but it couldn't be heard over all the noise. Soon after Daryl was gone, Andre grew tired of the song, and Roscoe began strumming something soft but complicated instead. Carol didn't recognize it. Maybe it was one of his own.

"What was that all about?" Sasha asked as she sat down on the couch next to Roscoe. She'd just taken out the trash to be burned. "Daryl was grumbling when I came in."

"Just got his panties in a wad, as par usual," Roscoe said. "What shall I play you?"

"Whatever you want. As long as it's _not_ Brown Sugar."

Roscoe broke into Van Morrison's "Brown-Eyed Girl" as Carol slipped the scene and found Daryl on the side of the wrap-around porch, bent over the railing, smoking. She admired his ass for a moment and couldn't resist running a hand across the seat of his pants before coming to lean backward against the rail next to him. As she looked down at him, he looked up at her curiously. "Tryin' to start something?" he asked.

"You were just putting it out there. Hard to resist."

His lip curved the tiniest bit as he stood straight, but the smile was mostly in his eyes. She smiled back. Daryl stubbed out his cigarette against the rail and flicked it into the dirt road. Then he turned to her, snaked an arm around her waist, and pulled her close to nibble on her neck. His teeth scraped over the now tingling flesh and up to her ear, which he kissed once before whispering, "Time for bed?"

At least he asked it as a question. Ed would always say, "Time for fucking." Period. End of sentence.

Carol had wanted some affection when she came out here, but she wasn't thinking of sex tonight. It had been a long day of hard work in her new position as _Councilwoman._ She still felt a buzz of pride to think she'd come so far, from burden to leader. "It's only eight. Come inside. Enjoy the music."

"Too many people in there."

"I'll tell you what. I'll see if Roscoe will bring Sophia up with him later, and maybe you and I can go on ahead up and have some tea."

When they were settled in their own living room with the fire going and their teacups in their hands - shoulder to shoulder on the couch this time - she asked, "Which woman on the Council _didn't_ you vote for?"

"Vote's anonymous."

She frowned. "Was it me? Is _that_ why you won't say?"

"'Course I voted for ya! Got a damn fine head on yer shoulders." Carol smiled. Her smile must have worked like a contagion, because he did, too, but then he ducked his head. "Pretty head, too." He ventured a hesitant kiss and then asked, "Tired yet? Ready for bed?"

He was cute when he was coming onto her, those blue eyes shy and eager all at once. She almost said yes even though she wasn't in the mood, but she couldn't fall into that habit of submission this time around. She was different now. This part had to be different too. "Yes, I am _tired_. But just so you know, I don't feel like sex tonight."

Daryl's face fell. "Somethin' I did?"

"No. I'm just tired. It's been a long day. I just want to relax."

"Ain't sex relaxin'?"

Carol's amusement drained, and her defenses rose. She couldn't help but remember the way Ed had expected her to perform whether she felt like it or not. The first few years, he pressured her and guilted her, and she usually gave in. When she didn't, he called her a shitty wife and left the house, slamming the front door behind himself, or opened the fridge to jerk out a six pack of beer to drink in the attic with his pile of porn magazines.

Then one terrible night, when she stuck to her no, Ed actually forced her. She was ready to walk away then, to lose her father's house, to find a way to live on her own, but then she learned she was six weeks pregnant. After that, she just stopped _ever_ saying no. She hated herself for that, but it was easier. Easier than fighting. Easier than supporting a child by herself, with only a high school education, no home, and no money in the bank. She hated herself for that weakness now. "Listen, I'm not going to want sex every night. And if I say I don't, I want you to _drop_ it."

Daryl's eyes flickered an emotion she couldn't read. He murmured something indecipherable, drained his cup of tea, and rose to put it in the sink. It clanged against the stainless steel as he washed it violently.

Carol's heart sunk into her gut. She'd wanted a nice, quiet evening together, and now he was angry. She came to the kitchen and leaned back against the center counter. "You can't be mad at me just because I don't want sex."

"Ain't mad at ya, Carol!" He pounded down the handle of the faucet with his fist and the water stopped. He put the palms of his hands down on the steel rim of the sink, bent forward, and sighed. "Upset yer mad at _me,"_ he said to the bottom of the sink. "Dunno the hell I'm doin'. Ain't never had a girlfriend. Don't know when I'm doin' somethin' wrong, less 'n ya tell me."

She took a step toward him, slid an arm around his waist, and kissed his shoulder. "You're not doing anything wrong, Daryl. I'm learning, too. I've had _one_ boyfriend and _one_ husband in my entire life. And my marriage was awful. Abusive. _I'm_ not an expert on this either. And sometimes…maybe I get scared. I get scared I'll make the same mistakes I did the first time."

"I ain't Ed."

"I know that. But I can't be that old Carol anymore either. I didn't mean to be so curt with you. I don't know how to be assertive without being rude. I've never _tried_ to be assertive before."

He stood straight and turned to her. He rested a hand lightly on her hip. "So ya ain't mad at me for wantin' it?"

"Of course not."

"Good. 'Cause I'm pretty much gonna want it every night."

She smiled. "And I'm probably not. Not _every_ night. It doesn't mean I don't love you. Because I _do_. More than I ever..." She couldn't finish. More than she ever knew it was possible to love a man. Like he was part of herself, and his wounds were her wounds, and his healing was her healing.

He chewed on his bottom lip and his eyes flitted to the floor.

"You want to come back and sit with me for a while? Wait up with me for Sophia and Roscoe?"

He nodded.

Daryl stoked the fire while she grabbed an afghan from off the back of the arm chair. She spread it over both of them when he sat beside her and put his feet up on the coffee table. "Would you put your arm around me?" she asked.

He did, and she rested her head on this shoulder. The white-orange flames were beautiful as they cracked and danced and licked the logs. Carol found the motion soothing, and she could feel the tension running out of her own body as Daryl's arm relaxed comfortably around her. She closed her eyes and only half woke up when he carried her to bed later. The double comforters were heavy against her as he settled them down over her shoulders, but she relished the warmth beneath them. "Nite, Carol." His voice was like a husky lullaby. "Sleep tight."

The sounds of Roscoe and Sophia's arriving chatter faded as he left the bedroom and closed the door behind himself.


	62. Not Your Little Woman

Daryl walked toward the living room and nodded to Roscoe. "Batten down the shutters while I get Soph to bed."

"You could have phrased that as a _request_ , you know," Roscoe told him, but he headed for the front door.

"Now you go on 'n get yer teeth brushed," he told Sophia.

Sophia stood up from the couch. "You _could_ have phrased that as a _request_ , you know."

"Watch yer tone with me, girl," Daryl said and then immediately wondered if he had the authority to say it.

He supposed he did, because she muttered, "Sorry" and went to brush her teeth.

When she was in the bathroom, he felt bad for being short with her. Ed was probably always short with her. So when she emerged again, he said, "Love if ya'd read to me from that Wrinkly book."

Sophia settled into her bed, and he sat on the desk chair in her room. He'd almost nodded off by the time she said, "And that's the end."

His head jerked back up.

Sophia set _A Wrinkle in Time_ on the end table. "I wish I had the sequel."

"'S a sequel?"

"There's an entire _series_."

"Could check the other cabins."

"I did. Today. With Beth and Zach. No one had it."

"Village had a used bookstore." They'd skipped it, and he wasn't sure it would have what she wanted, but he could check it out. "Didn't quite clear out everythin' in that town. Didn't have 'nough room. Probably should go back for a few more things anyhow."

"Well, be careful! Bring somebody!"

"Mhmhm. Won't take but a few hours. Oughtta do it 'fore it snows. "

"Carl found some sleds and we've already picked our sledding hill for when it does."

He looked down at her leg beneath the two comforters. "Sleddin'? Darlene say that was a'ight?"

Sophia nodded. "She thinks there's this loose bone fragment that's always going to be there. So I might always limp a little. But she said it's okay to be physical, as long as I don't try to compete in the Olympics."

"Lucky for them other athletes, or you'd of kicked their asses."

Sophia giggled. "I don't know about that, but I'm not going to use my cane anymore." Then she yawned. "I can't believe I'm staying up later than my mom!"

"Well don't let 'er know how late I let ya stay up." He stood from the chair. He felt that strange, affectionate urge to ruffle her hair, and this time he gave into it.

Sophia didn't seem to mind. She straightened her hair, but she was grinning when she did it. "Goodnight."

"Nite, Soph." He turned down the propane lamp and made his way in darkness toward the door.

When his hand was on the knob, her shy voice called out in the dimness: "Daryl?"

"Mhmhm?"

"Are you my stepdad?"

His heart pattered the way it did when he heard an unfamiliar noise in the woods. He knew 90% of noises, so anything unfamiliar left him feeling on-edge. "Uh...Better ask yer mama that. 'Nite now."

"Goodnight."

When he shut the door behind himself, he leaned back against it. Damn but he needed a smoke.

He went out on the front porch and found Roscoe out there, wearing his fleece-lined jean jacket and playing the guitar, his hands red from the cold.

Daryl lit up. "Gonna draw walkers with all that noise."

Roscoe stopped strumming. "What walkers?" In the glow of a propane lantern, he picked up a pencil from the end table by his rocking chair and made some musical notes on a piece of pre-lined paper. " I don't think there's any within ten miles." He dropped the pencil on the paper and went back to strumming. "Anyhow, I didn't want to play inside and bother Sophia and Carol while they're sleepin'."

Daryl smoked silently while Roscoe played. He had to admit, the music wasn't half bad.

Roscoe stopped to tune his guitar. "Just so you know, I voted for you."

"Ya did?" Daryl asked. He'd tried to guess where his ten votes had come from, and the only people he could think of who would have voted for him were Carol and Sophia. "But ya don't like me."

Roscoe plucked a string and then turned one of the tuning knobs. "Now why would you say that?"

Daryl shrugged.

"You've never done me no wrong. Why on earth wouldn't I _like_ you? Hell, I like just 'bout everyone. _"_

"Ya hated Merle." Daryl took a drag on his cigarette and blew out. A gray cloud of smoke curled over the railing.

 _"_ Merle put an alligator in my pool. He ran his motorcycle into the side of my trailer when he was drunk. Scared the hell out of my grandmama. And he stole my guitar and pawned it for drug money."

"Told me he ain't the one who stole that."

"Daryl, I went 'round checkin' pawn shops 'til I found it. He used his own damn name when he pawned it!"

Daryl's eyes narrowed. He felt instinctively defensive of Merle. "You turn him in?" Merle had been arrested three months after that guitar went missing, but not for theft. For possession with intent to distribute.

"No."

In the flickering light of the lantern, Daryl studied Roscoe's eyes. They were just like Will Dixon's: more green than blue. Daryl and Merle had inherited their mama's baby blues and her light hair. (They'd both been blonde as boys.) Roscoe, on the other hand, had inherited Will Dixon's thick, black hair but his own mother's slender build and dimples. Merle had gotten Will Dixon's build. Daryl supposed he'd gotten Clevus's.

"Merle did not endear himself to me," Roscoe continued. "Hell, he called me a faggot every time he saw me."

Daryl never knew what Merle's beef with Roscoe was, exactly, except that Roscoe just didn't _fit_ in those backwoods. And maybe Merle didn't like having walking evidence that Will Dixon cheated on Mama. Merle had always been a mama's boy. Daryl could barely remember the time when she was sober, but Merle could. She didn't check out and lose herself to the box wine until Merle was almost thirteen, so they'd actually had some kind of real mother-son relationship. But once she lost herself, Merle started in on the drinking, and then eventually the meth. She died while Merle was in juvie. When Daryl came home to that burned-out cabin, he felt sick and empty and terrified, but he didn't feel like he'd _lost_ her. He'd lost her _years_ before that day.

"Never bothered me, ya know," Daryl said.

"Merle callin' me a faggot?"

"You bein' one. Don't care 'bout that shit none. Ain't my business."

Roscoe set his guitar on the porch and leaned it against the end table. "You think I'm gay?"

"Told ya. Ain't my business."

"Why would you think that? 'Cause I like poetry?"

"No, 'cause ya like dick."

Roscoe snorted. "I...I don't even know what to say to that. Where are you sourcin' your information? _Merle_?"

Daryl shrugged. "Said he caught ya lookin' at man porn."

"He found me in the school library lookin' at an art book. At Michelangelo's David."

"Merle said Tammy Wilcox offered to fuck ya, and ya said no."

Roscoe tipped down his cowboy hat to scratch the back of his head. "'Cause I had a girlfriend down in Athens. Met her at that summer music camp I went to on scholarship. I was bein' faithful."

"Oh." Daryl drew on his cigarette until the tip glowed a bright red in the darkness. "Ya serious?"

"Serious as a heart attack. After I graduated high school, I married her and took her to Nashville with me."

"I ain't never heard that!"

"Ain't like we sent out weddin' invitations. We eloped. Her mama didn't think much of me. Anyhow, we were married a few years, struggling to make it in Nashville. She didn't want to struggle no more. Left me to play trophy wife to a tax lawyer almost twice her age. Broke my heart. But at least I got a damn good song out of it."

Daryl flicked a piece of tobacco off his tongue. "So Soph was right."

"Right about what?"

"Yer sweet on Sasha?"

Roscoe chuckled. He slid his hands into the pockets of his jean jacket. "I would _not_ kick her out my bed. But then again, I wouldn't kick Michonne out either. Or Darlene. Or Karen. Or Maggie. Or C – "

"- Say Carol and I'll kick yer ass."

"I was gonna say Karen."

"Ya _already_ said Karen."

Roscoe took his hands out of his pocket and plucked up his guitar again. "Any song requests?"

"Like the sound of silence."

Roscoe strummed and started singing, "Hello, darkness my old friend, I've come to speak with you again – "

"- Meant I like _quiet_." Daryl stubbed out the last of his cigarette beneath his boot. "Headed to bed. Lock that door when ya come in."

"Walkers can't open doors."

"No," Daryl agreed, "but Bob can."

[*]

Daryl awoke to the feel of Carol's head on his shoulder, her breath on his cheek, and an erection escaping the front flap of his boxers. He'd noticed how dirty his pants were last night and hadn't wanted to mess up their shared sheets, so he'd opted to go to sleep in just his boxers, something he never would have been comfortable doing a month ago. Now, Carol's fingertips were slipped beneath the cotton fabric and feathering his inner thigh.

He thought she was asleep until her touch became more deliberate, a light massage against his warm skin, in tantalizing circles that slowly neared his need. He was almost afraid to move, for fear she'd stop, but when her lips pressed gently against his cheek, he turned his head to kiss her.

The foreplay was deliciously slow, with lazy explorations beneath the heavy comforter, kisses and caresses and gentle nips, and Carol's pleading, quiet whimpers, which set every nerve in his body to tingling. She wanted to be on top this time, for the first time. He drunk in her beauty when she straddled him and the comforter fell to her waist to reveal her nakedness. When she clinched around him the second time, he was unable to hold out a moment later. He sat halfway up, gripped her hips to steady her, and ended it with one final thrust, burying his groan in hot breaths against her shoulder.

They collapsed back to the bed together, Carol's weight pressed against his body like a light blanket. Eventually, she slid off of him and curled around his side. He pulled the comforter up to her shoulders.

"Good morning," she said.

" _Damn_ good mornin'."

She giggled and then snuggled in closer.

He sighed contentedly. He drifted off for a few minutes and awoke to the sound of Roscoe's voice drifting, muted, through the door as he sang:

 _Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed  
Stay, lady, stay, stay with your man awhile  
Until the break of day, let me see you make him smile  
His clothes are dirty but his hands are clean  
And you're the best thing that he's ever seen_

Carol kissed his shoulder. "Seems we have an appropriate soundtrack for the morning festivities."

 _Stay, lady, stay, stay with your man awhile  
Why wait any longer for the world to begin?  
You can have your cake and eat it too  
Why wait any longer for the one you love?  
When he's standing in front of you…_

Daryl rolled onto his side and draped his arm across her waist. When the palm of her hand settled on his cheek, he gradually worked his eyes open.

"Thank you for getting Sophia to bed last night," she said. "I assume you did."

"Mhm. 'Bout that…" He rolled away and sat up against the headboard, where he worked on that perpetual hangnail with his teeth. "Asked me somethin' didn't know how to answer." His words were muffled around his thumb.

Carol sat up beside him while tucking the comforter under her arms. "What was that?"

He let go of the crutch of his thumb, but his eyes dropped to the comforter. "Asked if I's her stepdad."

"And what did you say?"

"Told her to ask ya."

"And what do you want me to say when she does ask me?"

"That's up to you."

"No," she told him. "I think that's up to _us_. How would you _want_ to answer it?"

He raised his eyes hesitantly to hers. "Yes?"

She smiled, that little, affectionate smile she got when she was being just a tad bit indulgent of him. "I told you you're a good daddy, Daryl. I _meant_ it. For months now, you've been more a father to Sophia than…" She stopped. She clearly didn't want to mention Ed. "You've been the father she's _needed_. So I think maybe that yes shouldn't have a question mark at the end of it."

"Yes," he said decisively. "I wanna tell her yes."

"Okay then."

Carol was looking at him funny, which made him wonder if he was supposed to say something else. "Okay then," he echoed her.

"When we tell her that, Sophia will see us as together."

"So?" He was confused as to why she was saying that so cautiously. They already _were_ together, weren't they?

" _Really_ together. So I hope that you saying you want to be her stepdaddy...I hope that means you'll continue to be a big part of Sophia's life even if you decide someday you don't want to be together anymore..." Her voice underwent that soft drop, the way it did when she was unsure of herself. "Even if you change your mind about _me_."

"Got my mind made up."

It was just a matter of fact statement, but, for some reason, it made her face crack into a bittersweet smile, and a small cry rip from her mouth. She bent her head against his neck and whispered, "Me too."

[*]

Carol handed Sophia the kettle and the girl poured the boiling water into the French press.

"How's my girl this mornin'?" Daryl asked Sophia as he leaned his elbows on the counter. "Makin' her stepdaddy some coffee?"

Sophia grinned. She glanced at Carol, who nodded and smiled at her.

Daryl stood straight. "After I drink this, gonna go get you them wrinkly books. Try to find 'em, anyhow."

"Go where?" Carol asked.

"Back to the village. Had a used bookstore."

"You're going on _another_ run today? Already?" It didn't seem fair that he put himself at risk so much more often than the others, hunting almost day alone in those woods, and going on all those runs. "We're well stocked. We're set for the winter."

"Yeah, but we ain't cleared _everythin'_ of value out that village. Oughtta get it 'fore someone else does."

"You're not doing it _alone_ ," Carol insisted.

"I'll go," Roscoe hollered from where he sat in the living room. "They got a used record shop, right?"

"Yeah, but we ain't wastin' space for records."

"Just a few," Roscoe said. "Might have blank sheet music books, too."

Sophia wandered over and sat next to Roscoe on the couch. Daryl went and got himself a coffee cup.

Carol followed him to the cupboard and said, "Why don't _I_ go this time?"

"Cain't have two people on the Council out. And ya got to be home for Soph," he told her.

"I meant _instead_ of you. _You_ can be home for Sophia."

The stunned reaction on Daryl's face might have been funny if Carol wasn't already bracing herself for an argument.

"What's so shocking about that suggestion?" she asked.

Daryl set his coffee cup with a clunk on the counter. He glanced at Sophia, who was preoccupied. He kept his voice low. "Said I'd be her _daddy_. Ain't signed up for Mr. Mom."

"She's pretty self-sufficient. I don't think you'll have to play Mr. Mom."

He toyed with the handle of the coffee cup. "Ain't just that. Don't want ya goin' on a run. Safer here."

Carol felt that old sense of inadequacy flare up, but this time it made her angry instead of timid. "I've been practicing. I'm a _good_ shot now. I've killed walkers - with a knife and a gun. I'm not some wilting violet you've got to keep under a glass jar."

"Why in the hell would anyone keep a wiltin' violet under a glass jar? That don't make no damn sense."

"Maybe my metaphor was bad, but I think you get my point. I can do this, Daryl."

"Never said ya couldn't. Just 'cause ya _can_ don't mean ya _have_ to. Ain't got to do runs. That's my job. That and huntin'. Yer job's cookin'."

Carol let out an exasperated sound that had Sophia and Roscoe's heads snapping in their direction. Sophia had Roscoe's guitar in hand at the moment.

"Can we take this conversation outside?" Carol whispered.

Daryl's eyes narrowed the way they did when he was threatened and gearing up for a fight, but then flitted down with shame. "Why?"

Carol walked out the kitchen door onto the back porch and waited for him to follow, which he did, reluctantly. The door shut with a soft click.

"Listen," she said. "I'm not your cook. I'm not your maid. I'm not your little woman you can just keep at home and not - "

"- And I ain't yer abusive ass of an ex-husband!" Daryl interrupted.

Carol fell silent and bit her lip.

"Sorry," he muttered. "Didn't mean to raise my voice. But I aint'...Look, I ain't tryin' to keep ya locked up. I just don't want ya to put yerself at risk if'n ya don't _have_ to. Ain't 'cause I want to control ya. It's 'cause I want to protect ya. Not 'cause yer weak. 'Cause I love ya."

Carol leaned back against the rail. "I'm sorry, too. I'm so afraid of not repeating my past mistakes, that sometimes I fall into new ones - like overreacting. I know you didn't mean it like that, but I need this, Daryl. I need to test myself. To prove myself."

"Nah. Ya don't."

"I _do_. I need to know I'm not that weak, dependent woman anymore, that I'm not just riding your coattails."

"How 'n the hell could you be ridin' my coattails? I ain't even got a coat."

Carol laughed.

"Nah, I'm serious." He stretched his arm out and rested his hand on the rail. "You got four more votes for the Council 'n me. If anyone's ridin' anyone's coattails, been me ridin' yers. Ya got great ideas. People trust you. They think damn highly of ya. "

Carol hugged herself. "They do, don't they?"

"Yeah. They do. So do I. So let me go on the run. Don't need to prove nothin' to no one."

Carol stepped forward and put a hand on his hip. "I appreciate that," she said. "But I do. I need to prove it to _myself._ I'm going on the run."

He sighed. "Fine. But don't take just Roscoe. _Please_."

"I'll see if T-Dog or Zach will go. They were on the last run. They know the village."

He nodded. The door opened and Sophia poked her head out. "Coffee's ready."


	63. Captured

T-Dog reached for Carol's AR-15 to put it in the backseat of the pick-up, but she kept a firm grip on it. "I want to keep it with me upfront."

"Okay. Guess that means I'm driving."

"Why not me?" Roscoe asked as he tossed the studded sleeves onto the backseat.

"Because you drive like an old Asian woman," said Glenn, who was passing by. "Be careful out there," he told Carol. Why hadn't he told Roscoe and T-Dog? She felt a little insulted.

Roscoe had just shut the door and was headed around to the other side of the pick-up when Sasha strolled up with a shotgun resting against her right shoulder. She looked at Carol quizzically. "Are you going on the run?"

Carol bristled. Sasha apparently didn't think she was capable of doing anything dangerous. "Yes. I'm a good shot, actually."

"I'm going to miss your cooking tonight."

Roscoe smiled at Sasha. "You want me to pick you up anything special while I'm in town, Brown Sugar?"

Sasha lowered her shot gun into a relaxed position across her arm. "What did I tell you about that nickname? I swear to God, Roscoe, one of these days, you're going to be missing some important parts."

"What would you _like_ me to call you then?" Roscoe asked.

"How about you call me by my _name_?"

"Sasha _is_ a gorgeous name," he said. "It suits you well. But I want something that's just between you and me."

Sasha shook her head. "You be safe now."

He tipped his hat to her. "You too, darlin'."

All three climbed into the truck and shut the doors and T-Dog started the engine. "Sasha's something else, isn't she?"

"You're with _Darlene_ ," Roscoe reminded him.

"Yes. Until she gets tired of me."

Roscoe cranked down his window and Carol checked the safety on her rifle.

"This is where someone's supposed to say she _isn't_ going to get tired of me." T-Dog began crunching the pick-up down the mountain hill.

"Darlene always was lookin' for the next best thing," Roscoe said, "even when we was kids. But don't you worry none. The paucity of the end times has a way of lowerin' a woman's standards."

"Is that what _you're_ counting on?" T-Dog quipped.

"Alas, I was more appealin' to the ladies _before_ the end times. There's not quite the same premium on being able to write a love song these days." Roscoe absently tapped the silver harmonica clipped to the side of his belt. Carol hadn't seen him play that yet. Then he patted the pile of sleeves. "These worked great at the radio station, Carol. Good thinking."

"Thank you."

When they were half a mile from the bottom of the mountain, just before the first bend that would make them visible to the road, Roscoe told T-Dog to stop. He got out of the truck and affixed a brush like structure to the back of the pick-up to smooth away the tire tracks as they drove, so the tracks wouldn't be seen. When he got back in, he told T-Dog to keep it under five miles per hour the rest of the way down to allow the contraption to work.

Carol shot his compliment back at him: "That's good thinking. Did you design that?"

"With Zach. He used to play hockey. Got the idea from the Zamboni."

They took the contraption off again when they were on the paved roadway. When they reached town, they started with the used record store at the edge of Main Street. T-Dog waited impatiently while Roscoe gathered his selections. "Think Sasha likes Aretha Franklin?"

"Why?" T-Dog asked. "Because she's black?"

Roscoe added the record to his stack. "Don't matter. _I_ like Aretha. Get me some Etta James too."

Carol listened to all this as she stood guard with her back to the men and her front to the entrance. She was a little disappointed there had been no walkers to kill. There were a few stumbling around at the far end of Main Street, but they weren't close enough to bother with yet.

"Here's one for Darlene," Roscoe said.

T-Dog's heavy footsteps trailed from near the door. " _Heart_? Are you serious?"

"Why the tone?" Roscoe asked. "Ann Wilson's got herself some pipes. Heart was Darlene's favorite band when she was a teenager. Trust me. You're gonna get laid bringin' her that."

"I don't have any problem getting laid as is," T-Dog informed him.

"Yeah, I reckon you don't. Darelne's hornier than a two-peckered billy goat."

"Hey, that's my woman you're talking about!"

"Keepin' up is a good problem to have, that's all I'm saying."

"Boys!" Carol interrupted. "Are you almost done in here?"

"Let me just get the weed out the back," Roscoe told her. "Always got weed in a used record shop."

"We don't need weed!" Carol told him.

"We might. For medicinal purposes."

"You know, Andre's father got devoured when he was high on pot," Carol reminded him.

"I'll keep it away from Michonne so she won't have to think about it. But I'm serious. We may need it one day."

T-Dog shot off the lock to the backroom. When he opened the door, a walker growled its way out, and Roscoe stumbled back. "Let me," Carol insisted, shouldering her rifle and striding forward with her knife, but T-Dog shot it before she was halfway down the aisle. She sighed and returned to guard duty.

The men were in the back room for a long time, and Carol was turning to investigate when they emerged, each with a large cardboard box.

"No weed," T-Dog said, "but we found five bottles of booze, a six pack of beer, twenty protein bars, and lots of extra batteries. I think he was living back there and died of alcohol poisoning."

They put the loot in the pick-up and moved onto the used bookstore, which the men hadn't entered last time. The door was shut and they could see at least one walker rattling around inside. "Let me kill this one," Carol pleaded. "There's no point in me being here if I don't get to practice."

T-Dog looked reluctant, but Roscoe said, "Be my guest, little lady."

She shouldered her rifle and waited for T-Dog to smash the window and unlock the door. Roscoe held the door open for her while she rushed in, grabbed the undead thing by the shoulder to keep it at a distance, and shoved the blade of her knife deep into its forehead. Carol yanked it out and felt a guilty thrill as the creature slumped to the ground. Without any sense of squeamishness this time, she pulled a handkerchief out of her back pocket and wiped the blade clean.

A gunshot rang out, and air wisped past her. T-Dog had just shot another walker that was rounding a shelf on Carol's left and lunging toward her.

"I should have seen that," she said, all of her pride in her recent walker-slaying accomplishment vanishing.

"There's a reason no one should scavenge alone," T-Dog told her. " _Everyone_ benefits from backup."

"Even Daryl," Roscoe reassured her.

Carol looked for the books Sophia wanted while Roscoe stood guard. She couldn't find the second book in the series, but she snagged the last three. There'd be a gap in the tale, but Carol supposed Sophia was used to that. They'd woken up one morning to find a gap in their own stories, after all – a world collapsing and the dead rising. You picked up the story wherever you jumped into it.

The used bookstore had a small rack of candy in the children's section, which T-Dog emptied into his backpack. T-Dog's gunshot had drawn a few more walkers their way. Carol got to kill two, one after the other, and felt a jolt of adrenaline followed by a thrill of victory. T-Dog dispensed with two more, while Roscoe just watched their bodies fall. Carol wondered how few walkers he'd killed since this all started.

They went onto the Grills N' Things shop next. They were there for the remaining charcoal that hadn't all fit the first time, but they discovered that inside the closed grills were more spices and sauces. They also found packages of pepperoni and jars of pizza sauce. "Let's bring back this outdoor pizza oven," Carol suggested.

"We have wood stoves and grills," T-Dog said from his guard spot by the door. "And it'll take up too much room."

"T, man," Roscoe said, "she's gonna make us pizza!"

"Cheeseless pizza," Carol warned. "Well, maybe some grated Parmesan." They had a few cans of that.

"Well, I can't say no to pizza," T-Dog agreed. He came over to help carry the outdoor oven back to the pick-up. He shouldered his weapon, as did Roscoe, and they both grabbed an end.

Carol was watching them bend at the knees when she saw a movement behind the stacked bags of charcoal. Her finger moved toward her trigger, but it was too late. Two men sprung into a standing position from behind the bags and leveled their guns at T-Dog and Roscoe, who dropped the pizza oven. Meanwhile, the hard, cool barrel of a gun pressed against the back of Carol's head.

Carol was quickly disarmed by the man behind her, who then took T-Dog and Roscoe's guns from their shoulders and demanded they all put their hands up. She had never felt so vulnerable as she did at this moment, with her hands stretched upward in the air as the three men prowled in a circle around them.

She'd once feared walkers, but walkers were nothing compared to men. Walkers were predictable. At worse they killed you. You wouldn't suffer more than few minutes before you lost enough blood and simply slid into oblivion. But who knew what these men would want to do to her.

[*]

Daryl adjusted the wooden block on the accelerator and tied it tightly to the pedal. He slid out of the front of the sedan and stood. "Now try it."

Sophia climbed into the driver's seat, gripped the wheel, and put her foot against the block. "I can reach now."

He'd taken the car down a few cabins, to a large, flat spot used for RV parking, to give her room to drive. He now climbed into the passenger's seat beside her and told her to start the car.

She cranked the key, but the engine only sputtered.

"Give 'er a little gas first."

"What?"

"If it ain't startin', press the gas pedal a little 'fore – Don't flood it!"

The engine whirred to life and Sophia smiled.

"Okay, now, ya got to put your foot on the brake when you're poppin' it into drive. Just – "

The car rolled a little, stopped, and then Sophia slammed the accelerator. The sedan sped forward quickly across the dirt lot and was heading straight for the tree line. Daryl tried to get his leg over the console between them but couldn't, so he lunged down head first and pushed the brake with his hand. The car jerked to a stop and his head slammed against the plastic interior while his shoulder hit the radio knob. He grunted. "Put yer foot on the damn brake, girl. _Now!_ "

When Sophia's foot nervously neared the brake, he wrapped his hand around her canvass shoe and pressed it down until it was firmly against the brake. Then he dragged himself back into a sitting position.

"Sorry." Sophia looked at him fearfully. "Are you all right? I'm really sorry. I'm really – "

Daryl dropped his annoyance instantly. "'S a'ight." This was the point at which Ed would probably have blown up at her. He didn't think Ed had ever hit her – Carol had drawn the line somewhere - but he'd probably yelled a lot, and Sophia must have lived in fear that he would _start_ hitting her any minute, the way he had her mother. "Just…if'n ya want me to teach ya, ya got to promise to follow directions. A'ight?"

Sophia nodded.

"And I didn't tell ya to hit that accelerator yet."

"I'm sorry."

"I ain't upset," Daryl assured her. "Now we're gonna need to reverse."

Sophia pushed down the brake and popped the car into reverse. She looked at him hesitantly. He smiled lightly at her. "That's right. Now the accelerator, a _little_ bit."

[*]

A handsome young man who appeared to be only a few years older than Zach came to a stop in front of Roscoe and tilted his head. A fine, brown stubble stretched across his lip and crawled over his chin. "Hey, Roscoe," he said.

"Hey, Gareth," Roscoe replied.

Carol might have been relieved at this mutual recognition and exchange of first names if Roscoe didn't seem so wary. She could almost feel the tension radiating off of him.

"So," Gareth asked, "how have you been doing ever since the night you slipped out of Terminus?"

 _Shit!_ Carol thought. _Shit. Fuck. Shit._ These were three of the cannibals from Terminus!

"Well, you know," Roscoe said casually, obviously trying to mask the slight tremor in his voice, "making ends meet. How 'bout y'all?"

"Not well," Gareth replied.

To Gareth's left stood a young man in a blue-gray baseball cap. He snapped his gum. "You see, our food supply dried up."

On Gareth's right was a tall, muscular, middle-aged black man with graying hair. "People stopped coming to Terminus."

"Oh," Roscoe said.

"You know why?" Gareth asked.

"'Cause most everyone's in the world's dead, I reckon," Roscoe said.

"No," Gareth told him. His dark brown eyes were cool. They made Carol shiver. "Because that radio broadcast we kept breaking into got changed. To a _warning_. You wouldn't know anything about that, now would you?"

Roscoe shook his head. "No, sir. I would not."

"That's funny, because I could have sworn that was _you_ speaking Spanish on that broadcast."

"Do I look like a man of many languages to you? I'm just a humble southern boy. I barely know English."

Gareth tightened his grip on his gun. "We went to that radio station and tried to turn off the warning, but we found booby traps. My mother lost her leg."

Carol wasn't aware the team had bobby trapped the radio station before they left, but it was clever. Except now that cleverness had this man angry.

"That's tragic," Roscoe said. "I'm very sorry to hear that."

"We got the door open," the man in the baseball cap said, "and found a bunch of the undead herded and shut up inside there. We had to close that door tight and retreat. We didn't know what else we might find in there. So now we're forced to scavenge for food."

"Plenty of good spices and sauces in here," Roscoe said. "Probably some food left in the convenience store. We'll leave it to y'all. You're welcome to all of it. We'll just be on our way." He stepped forward and Gareth pushed him back with the point of his rifle. Roscoe stood still. He grinned, his white teeth flashing but his friendly smile wavering a bit on the end. "Hey, brothers, listen, I saved your lives! All y'all's! I let you out those cattle cars so you could take Terminus back from those bandits. I say we call it even."

"We _will_ call it even," Gareth told him with a nod, and Roscoe's shoulders lowered with relief.

Carol's didn't. She knew that tone in Gareth's voice, that same falsely soft tone Ed got just before he was gearing up for a really strong slap.

"We'll call it even just as soon as you make up for the food you took out of our mouths." Gareth jerked his head toward the man in the baseball cap. "Tie 'em up, Martin."

Martin shouldered his rifle, opened his jacket, and pulled a light brown rope out of the inner pocket. He started with Carol, jerking her arms down from over her head and crossing them in back. The rope was rough against her wrists, and she willed herself not to tremble as it was pulled tight and cut into her soft flesh.

Gareth stepped up to her and looked her up and down slowly – not lecherously, like a man who wanted sex – but hungrily, like a man who was admiring a juicy steak. "Did you know...the anatomy of the female makes them superior for eating? There's a tenderness to the flesh, especially in the meaty areas." He trailed a fingertip from her collar bone down the v-neck of her shirt to just above her cleavage and licked his lips. T-Dog made a move toward him but was held back at gunpoint. Martin tied him up next.

While Roscoe was being tied, Gareth winked at Carol. "I can't wait to get a taste of you, sweetheart."

Carol was pushed forward and marched toward the door. She was about to be butchered and eaten, but for some reason, that thought did not weigh so heavily on her mind as did her shame – why hadn't she thought to check every aisle and behind every row of bags and boxes before they began loading up? Daryl would have. She should have listened to him and stayed home. She wasn't ready for a run like this. She wasn't _adequate_. And now she was going to leave her daughter motherless because of her own pathetic, unjustified self-confidence.

Carol stumbled forward into the blinding light of the street, the cannibal on her heels.


	64. Shot

The cannibals paraded them down the street, around a corner, and through an alley to a van. Martin opened the back doors. While Gareth kept a gun on them all, Martin loaded in the backpacks he'd taken from Carol and T-Dog and the cardboard boxes they'd filled at Grill's N Things.

He jumped back onto the street with the thud of black boots against black pavement and ordered them to climb inside. It was difficult stumbling up with her hands tied behind her back, and Martin ended up boosting Carol inside the van and then shoving her in. She fell face first onto the floor. Roscoe's steel-tipped cowboy boots loudly clattered inside next to her as she rolled onto her back and managed to sit up.

Roscoe slumped back against the wall of the van, bending his head at the neck. His cowboy hat squished against the ceiling of the van.

Martin was leading T-Dog into the van when Gareth said, "No. We'll take him with us to clear out the village. He can show us where to scavenge." He seized the handle of one door and looked at Carol and Roscoe. "Sit tight in here. We'll be back soon. Don't bother trying to get out. I'm leaving Johnny outside to guard this van." He nodded to the third man.

The doors slammed shut. There were no windows in the back, but sunlight was scattering in through the front windshield and the cracks in the wall of cardboard boxes. Carol gave her eyes time to adjust and then pulled herself into a crouched standing position. She made her way to the boxes and looked around desperately for something to cut their ties with, but she saw nothing but canned and boxed food and batteries. "Why haven't they already killed us?"

"They like to keep their meat fresh 'til they kill and cook and eat it," Roscoe told her. "Least, that was their plan when I took off. Probably kill us one at a time, one day at a time, before dinner."

Carol let out a trembling sigh and began once again scouring the boxes in the hazy light.

"Can you reach my harmonica? I can't get at it."

"What good will that do us? " She hadn't meant to sound so bitter toward him, but while she was searching for some way out, he was talking about harmonicas.

Roscoe turned his hip toward her. "Ain't really a harmonica. It's a switchblade. If you can manage to get it out, then find that indention on the bottom and press it in."

Maybe Roscoe wasn't quite the clown Daryl imagined him to be. The cannibals had searched them and removed their guns and knives, but they hadn't bothered with the harmonica.

Carol turned her back to Roscoe's hip and strained and stretched her fingers until she had the harmonica unclipped from his belt, but then it slipped through her fingers to the ground.

[*]

Rice cakes kept longer than bread. They didn't mold. They just got hard. Daryl watched Sophia spread a thick layer of peanut butter on top of one. "It's probably stale from months of sitting on the shelf," she said.

"Wouldn't know the difference," Daryl told her. "Taste stale to me when they's fresh."

"But you'll like it with peanut butter and jelly," she assured him.

He'd _pretend_ to like it, anyway. "Thanks," he told her when she set his lunch on the kitchen table in front of him. They were in their own little cabin, eating from their pantry's stash, as they typically did for lunch and breakfast before the big communal dinner.

"Can I have some beer?" she asked when he opened a bottle, one of his two rationed drinks for the week. He'd felt like he needed it after trying to teach Sophia to drive.

"Ain't legal," he told her.

"There's no legal anymore."

"Yer mama wouldn't like it."

"My mom's not _here_. Please? Come on! How old were you when you had your first beer?"

"Not old enough," he told her and took a swig.

She sighed, pouted, and picked up her peanut butter and jelly rice cake.

"Ah, what the hell. Ain't like yer gonna like it." He pushed the bottle across to her.

Sophia grinned, picked it up, and took a great big swig. The bottle slurped out of her mouth and she sputtered beer straight into his face.

Daryl closed his eyes and wiped a hand slowly across his cheeks and nose to clear the spray.

"I'm _so_ sorry!" she exclaimed when his eyelashes fluttered open again.

"Now ya owe me an ounce of beer," he told her in a deadly serious tone, but then he cracked the slightest smile. "Settle for a game of checkers, though."

Sophia grinned and pushed the beer bottle back across the table to him. "Okay, but I'm going to trounce you."

[*]

Carol muttered curses under her breath as she sat on the floor of the van and struggled to reach the harmonica. When she finally had it within her grip, she turned the cool silver until she could feel the indentation, and then pressed down on it. The blade sprung out, faintly scraping the flesh above her wrists, and she winced at the sudden pain and the hot, wet sensation of the blood on her flesh.

"Careful!" Roscoe warned her. "Can you work it under the rope?"

"I'm trying." It took longer than she thought it would. It always looked so easy in the movies. It must have been five minutes before she managed to saw through the ropes from that peculiar angle, but she felt a wave of liberation when they finally splintered free. She seized the switchblade more securely in her right hand and turned to Roscoe. With her hands free, she made much quicker work of his ropes.

"Now what?" Roscoe asked.

"I thought you had a plan," Carol said.

"I thought you were the lady with the plans."

"You came up with the Terminus plan," she reminded him.

"Yeah, so I'm all planned out."

Carol looked at the knife in her hand and looked at the back door. "We start with that guard. Make a lot of noise so he opens the door. I'll stab him as soon as he does. You go for his gun."

"Think that'll work?"

"I don't know, but sitting in here waiting for the other two to come back sure isn't going to work!"

Roscoe nodded. They moved to the end of the van. Carol considered where best to stab. People weren't walkers. They didn't have squishy foreheads. She might hit a bone. She should probably aim for the heart. Of course, she'd have to thrust down from this angle, and he'd be holding a gun, and the heart would be hard to reach. Time was of the essence. She should probably just stab at whatever soft flesh provided an opening, enough to distract him while Roscoe wrestled away his gun.

She'd never stabbed a man before. She might fail, and then they'd both die now.

Carol was thinking of handing the harmonic switchblade over to Roscoe, of asking him to do the stabbing, but it was too late. Rosoce was already pounding on the door and shouting, "Fire! Fire! Help!"

Adrenaline took over. When the door opened, Carol lunged forward and drove the switchblade into the man's eye. He screamed and loosened his grip on his rifle. Roscoe seized it, and the man stumbled backward, the blade still deep in his eye socket. Roscoe shot him in the chest.

Carol jumped out of the van, blood on her hands, and yanked the switchblade back out just like she would have done with a walker. They vanished through the alley, melding themselves to the walls, Roscoe with the man's rifle in hand, and Carol still clutching the harmonica switchblade. They peered around corners, searching for T-Dog and the other two men. When Carol's head rounded the next corner, she spied Martin holding T-Dog at gunpoint on the sidewalk in front of the cigar shop.

Gareth emerged with a cardboard box and set it alongside another on the curb before returning inside the store.

She jerked back out of sight. "They're at the end of the sidewalk."

"Daryl said you're a good shot." Roscoe extended her the rifle. "I ain't."

Carol took the gun in her lightly trembling hand. She just needed to steady her nerves, and she could do this. First, she made sure the gun was ready. Then she raised it, closed one eye, and peered through the scope just before rounding the corner.

T-Dog came into her crosshairs first, and his eyes widened. He'd spied her. Martin thankfully hadn't. He was busy looking inside the shop. T-Dog took a step to the left, out of the way of Carol's shot. She got the young man in her line of vision and steadily squeezed the trigger.

The first nervous shot missed. The sound of the gunfire sent Martin sweeping his gun in her direction, but she hit him with her second shot, straight in the head.

Gareth ran out of the store firing in her general direction. Carol felt a sudden, seething jolt of fiery pain, but she kept shooting.

Only when Gareth fell to the ground did she notice the blood seeping from her left shoulder. The sight of it made her head spin the way it did when she was drunk. Her rifle drooped. Walkers, drawn by the gunshots like sailors to the song of a siren, were spilling out of some of the shops and one of the alleyways. Some were heading toward them, and some were heading toward T-Dog, who was still bound and in no position to fight.

Carol tried to steady herself on her feet and struggled to raise her rifle so she could shoot them before they reached T-Dog, but the effort sent pain coursing from her shoulder to her head.

She swooned, and all went black.

[*]

"Easy now," Daryl told Sophia. "Pull gently toward the head. Careful ya don't get the skin." He was teaching her to pluck doves. Darlene and Sasha had bagged half a dozen. The women were washing up in the creek at the bottom of the hill on the other side of the playground. The water tanks had run dry again, and Glenn was currently running the generator to power the pumps to refill them.

Sophia set one dove aside on the skinning table and picked up another. Daryl took the one she'd set aside and drew out his hunting knife to cut off its head.

"Were there a lot of walkers in that village?" Sophia asked.

He could tell she was trying to hide her nervousness. "Nah. Not that many. They got them sleeves. Yer mama's a good shot. Nothin' to worry 'bout."

The truth was, he was worried - not because that village was particularly dangerous, but because he wasn't there with Carol. It made him uneasy, the thought of her out there like that. He would have insisted on going with her if he didn't think it would start a huge fight. But there was something in her that was crying out to test herself. He couldn't get in the way of that.

"Are we eating these tonight?" Sophia asked.

"Nah. Age 'em a bit in the smokehouse first. Taste better that way. Havin' pancakes and Spam tonight. Chef Rick's cookin' 'em with Carl."

Sophia giggled. "Chef Rick. That's funny."

"Well, 's what Michonne's callin' him. Ain't my idea."

"Michonne likes him."

"Good Lord. Everything's a romance novel with you, ain't it?"

Sophia shrugged. "What's wrong with wanting people to love each other?"

He looked up from the dove he was now plucking. She'd spent years growing up in a home with parents who didn't love each other. So had he. It did things to you, that empty space all around you. It could make you stop believing in good things. But Sophia _hadn't_ stopped believing. In that way, she was a tougher kid than he'd ever been. He'd tossed aside that faith long ago. It was easier if you didn't believe, if you didn't _want_. His life here with Carol had restored that hope, that faith in good things, but there was still a disbelief that lingered in a dark, hungry corner of his heart...There was that ten percent of him that was always waiting for Carol to wake up and walk out.

"Ain't nothin' at all wrong with it, Soph." Maybe there was something strange in his voice, because she looked up from her dove and caught his eyes. "I love yer mama," he told her. "Ya know that?"

"Yeah," she said with a smile. "It's kind of obvious."

"And uh..." He concentrated on a feather. "You, too, Soph. Yer like..." He peered up from the bird. "Yer my little girl."

Sophia's smile trembled, and she looked down at her fingers on the bird. "I love you, too." Almost beneath her breath, she added, "Dad."

[*]

Carol heard a thud. Then she felt her body rise and fall. Was she having an out-of-body experience? Had her soul just come out of itself and then slammed back down? Her eyelids fluttered open.

Roscoe's eyes came into focus, very close to her own, a stark, blue-green sea like an artificially colored aquarium. His voice, that strange medley of a Tennessee-Georgia twang, reached her ears: "Carol, Carol, you a'right?"

Her eyes flitted left and then right and then up. They were in the back of the Terminus van. She was lying on her back. The thud must have been them running over something, and that had caused the van to bounce, that was all. Her soul wasn't going anywhere.

But _why_ were they in the back of the Terminus van? She sat up abruptly. "Did they capture us?" The pain overtook her and she fell onto her back again.

"No. Stay still. You killed 'em both. Remember?"

She couldn't remember.

"We got the keys off 'em and took their van 'cause it was closer than our pick-up and we've got to get you back to the cabins right away."

"Where's T-Dog?" she croaked, the scene returning to her mind. "The walkers - "

"- He's drivin'. He's a'right. He ran in the store and kicked the door shut. Most of 'em got distracted by those two fallen bodies and started feasting. That gave me time to grab your gun and shoot the ones nearest us. Took me all ten of the bullets left in your magazine just to get five of 'em. Then six were comin' at me, and all I had was that damn harmonica knife. Fortunately, T-Dog cut his own ropes on box cutter in the store, made his way out, grabbed one of the rifles, and got them 'fore they got to us."

"I've been shot."

"Yeah, in the shoulder. Just lie still. Relax."

Carol craned her neck to look at the wound. Roscoe's long-sleeve, flannel shirt was tied around it, which explained why he was only in a white undershirt. "Did you take the bullet out?"

"Don't know how to do that. Liable to make it worse. Just tried to stop the bleedin'."

"How much blood did I lose?"

"Don't think 'bout it. We're gettin' you home. Got a nurse and an army medic. Yer gonna be fine."

He sounded nervous when he said that last line, like he didn't believe it himself. If she died in this van, she'd die with two human lives on her hands. Maybe three, if you counted the one she'd stabbed and Roscoe had shot. "Have you ever killed a man?" she asked.

"Before today?" Roscoe asked. "No."

"I killed two men today."

"Self-defense," Roscoe told her. "The world doesn't need people like that. Better off without 'em. I ain't gonna have any trouble sleepin' tonight. You oughtn't either, 'cause you saved my life, and you saved T-Dog's."

Carol closed her eyes. It felt as if the van were spinning.

"Hang in there," Roscoe whispered, and those were the last words she remembered before she lost consciousness again.


	65. Matching Wounds

Daryl and Sophia had just stepped out of the smokehouse when the sound of an engine rose in the distance. Daryl burst into a run. When he saw the unfamiliar van cresting the hill beyond the protective line of cars, he leveled his crossbow over the roof of a sedan. "Get in the big cabin! Now!" he ordered Sophia, who had trailed after him. She obeyed, and ran with a limp up the stairs. Beth plucked up Andre, who had been playing on the porch with his mother, and brought him inside with Sophia before closing the door.

Daryl glanced back at the watchtower to see Zach with his rifle aimed at the van. Soon Michonne was beside him with her katana drawn. By the time the van had pulled to a stop, Darlene and Sasha had flanked him.

"Bandits or refugees?" Sasha asked.

Darlene looked through her scope and then lowered her rifle. "They're ours," she said with a grin. "My T-Baby's drivin'."

Her smiled faded when T-Dog spilled out of the passenger's side, screaming, "Carol's hurt!" He ran around to the back of the van to throw open the doors.

Roscoe clamored out the back first, and when Daryl saw that his white undershirt was spattered with blood, his muscles seized with terror. He'd been through months of an apocalypse now, but he'd never felt _terror,_ not like this. He couldn't seem to move.

Darlene was moving, though, telling Sasha, "Get Bob! And get a bed ready! And get my medical bag!"

[*]

Carol's eyes fluttered opened to find another set of blue eyes this time. Softer, lighter than Roscoe's, and so much more familiar. "Daryl," she croaked.

His lips fell warm on her forehead. A strangled cry of relief escaped him, and his strong hand smoothed back the soft strands of hair atop her head. He kissed her cheek and then her mouth, softly but needfully. "Bob and Darlene say yer gonna be a'ight," he said when he drew back. "Just need to stay in bed a few days, and take it easy for a couple weeks after that. Ya ain't even cookin' for a while. Get other folks to do that for a bit."

Carol looked around. She was in the master bedroom of the big cabin. She felt a sudden shiver, to think this was the bed Lori had died in. "I want to be in my own room."

"A'ight. In a little, drive ya up there, if'n Bob says it's a'ight." He was sitting in a desk chair next to her. He slid his hand from her hair over her non-injured shoulder, down her arm, and then laced his fingers through hers. "Darlene helped, but…was Bob really saved ya. Been on the battlefield. Treated dozens of gunshot wounds."

She smiled weakly. "Glad we didn't banish him now?"

"Yeah. Still don't trust 'em 'round the booze, though."

"I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"For being so stupid. For thinking I had to prove myself and then nearly getting us all killed."

"Roscoe said you's the one who saved everyone."

Carol swallowed. "I didn't think to sweep every corner when we went into that store."

"Yer alive. 'S all that matters. And ya got yer people out alive."

She ran a fingertip over a light scar on the back of his hand, where he'd scraped himself in the brush while hunting. He had so many scars. She smiled weakly. "Now we have matching shoulder wounds."

He chuckled. "Yeah. Just as good as weddin' rings."

Carol's eyes flitted up from his hand to his eyes, which he immediately dropped. He seemed embarrassed, as though he'd just let some secret thought slip. He stared fiercely at the pattern in the comforter. She decided to respond straightforwardly, as though his words hadn't surprised her. "Yes. Our wounds bind us, don't they?"

He raised his eyes shyly to hers. "Yeah. They do."

[*]

Carol had been asleep for a couple of hours back in her own room when she awoke to find the sun setting in hazy orange rays through her window. The cabins were well lit by natural light during the day, when the shutters weren't battened down, but in anticipation of the coming darkness, she reached over to light the kerosene lamp on her nightstand. A sudden, searing pain shot through her shoulder and down her arm.

Bob had told her it was going to hurt every time she strained herself for at least another week, but she hadn't thought reaching for a lamp would qualify as a _strain_. If Daryl had been hurting this badly after his gunshot wound to the shoulder back in Atlanta, he'd hidden it well.

In the doorway, there arose the gravely sound of a throat clearing. Daryl was holding a TV tray with a plate of pancakes and spam and a glass of Sunny D. "Room service."

"Dinner in bed," she said. "How romantic."

Daryl set the TV tray by her bedside and plopped down next to her. She was hungry than she realized. The first bite hit the empty pit of her stomach like the first spark of a fire. Carol greedily wolfed down two more bites. "Chef Rick didn't do a bad job," she said after swallowing her fourth. She was glad for his help, but it also made her feel a little less essential to the community.

"Ain't nearly as good as yours," he told her.

"So what was in that van? Did anyone inventory it? There were a lot of boxes."

He rolled on his side, leaned an elbow against the mattress, and propped his head up with the palm of his hand. "Good stuff. Not from the village neither. Must've stopped someplace else on their way up from the radio station. Gin, vodka, whiskey. That's locked in our pantry now where Bob cain't get at it. Rice, pasta, pasta sauce Some shit called coo-coo."

"Couscous?"

"Yeah. Over twenty cans of tuna."

"Oooh!"

He smiled. "Yeah. And canned carrots, peas, green beans. Vienna sausages. Got some anchovies and olives for that pizza yer gonna make us."

"Roscoe told you I wanted the pizza oven?"

He nodded. "Get it for ya when I go back."

The Council had decided to send Daryl, Zach, and Glenn back to town to cover their tracks. Staying hidden was their best bet, they agreed. Once Daryl got the pick-up truck back – and the charcoal and whatever other goods the trio had left behind in the village – they wouldn't make any more supply runs until winter was over.

"It was stupid of me…Thinking about ovens and cooking instead of men behind bags." Carol sawed angrily at her Spam with her knife.

"Don't beat yerself up. Ain't like Roscoe or T-Dog thought to look neither. Should of sent Rick with ya. Or Sasha." When Carol frowned, he said, "Just...mean they's _trained_. Rick was a cop and Sahsa was a fireman. Firewoman. Fire…person."

Carol snorted.

"Used to runnin' into fires and lookin' 'round for dangers anyhow."

Carol set aside her now empty plate.

"Brought ya some books from the other cabins," he told her. "Since yer gonna be laid up." He rolled out of the bed and brought back a stack of Harlenquin romance novels.

She burst out laughing.

"What?" he asked.

"What makes you think I like Harlequins?"

He shrugged. "Yer a girl."

"Go get me some thrillers. Or historical fiction."

[*]

Carol's tears were warm as they trickled against Daryl's shoulder. She was lying on her stomach, so she wouldn't accidentally roll on her wounded shoulder, which was her usual sleeping side. Lying on his back in bed, Daryl put a hand lightly on her neck and tightened his other arm around her. He didn't know what the hell to say.

"Ya a'ight?" It was a dumbass question. Clearly she was _not_ all right.

She pulled slightly away and swiped at her eyes with the fingers on the hand of her good arm. She sniffled and then settled her head on his chest again. "I just wanted to prove myself," she said. "I didn't think I'd have to kill people. Humans."

"Nothin' human 'bout those men." He kissed the top of her head. "Did what ya had to."

Carol ended up crying herself to sleep, but those tears made it impossible for _him_ to sleep. Maybe he'd volunteer to help keep watch, even though he wasn't on the schedule tonight. He slipped out from beneath her and made his way through the living room. Roscoe wasn't on the couch.

Daryl found him in the watchtower, leaned against the rail, talking to Sasha, who was paying attention to the road and forest while she replied.

"Hey," Sasha called down to him. "You can't sleep either? Like Roscoe?"

"Relieve ya?" Daryl asked.

She nodded. "Sure."

Roscoe glowered when he finished scaling the ladder, and it suddenly occurred to Daryl that he might have interrupted something, at least in Roscoe's mind.

Sasha shouldered her rifle, and Daryl unshouldered his bow.

"May I walk you home?" Roscoe asked her.

Sasha chuckled. "Sure, you know, because I can't handle myself if something scary comes out of the woods at night."

"Just though you might enjoy my scintillating company."

Sasha laughed, shook her head, and made her way down the ladder.

"Carol all right?" Roscoe asked Daryl.

"Still shook up."

Roscoe sighed. "It was ugly," he said, and then he disappeared down the rope ladder.

Daryl could hear them talking as they headed to Sasha's cabin. Roscoe was complaining that Bob was starting to flirt with Sasha and warning her not to get tangled up with an alcoholic when she could "just as easily fall for a musicholoic." Daryl shook his head and scanned the treeline, but as their laughter rose up and drifted on the night air, he found himself silently wishing Roscoe good luck.

Daryl had been raised to envy others, to loathe the rich or the good-mannered or the too happy, and it was odd to find himself wishing others well, to find himself _liking_ people and wanting the best for them. But maybe that's exactly what it meant to have a place you could call home.

[*]

Sophia poured Daryl a big mug of travel coffee in the morning. It was thick and rich, almost sludge, and Daryl complimented her on her good taste. This would get him through the day.

Roscoe was snoring away on the couch like a stuttering chainsaw, so he probably hadn't gotten lucky with Sasha last night. Of course, Sasha shared a room with Karen, so he wouldn't likely have spent the night even if she'd wanted him to. Would-be lovers had no privacy in these cabins. Darlene and T-Dog, Daryl and Carol, and Glenn and Maggie had already claimed their private spheres, but any new couples were shit out of luck. That might be a problem down the road...not that _he_ was going to bring it up to the Council.

"You take good care of yer mama," he told Sophia. Carol was still sleeping. Her wound had wiped the energy right out of her.

"Be safe," Sophia replied. "I'm worried."

"Gonna be a'ight."

Sophia inched forward cautiously and turned her cheek toward him. He looked at her, puzzled for a moment, before he realized she must want him to kiss her goodbye. He hadn't kissed a relative since he was a very little boy and his mother still welcomed his sloppy kisses, before he'd become an annoyance and a burden to her, a mere interruption to her television shows and box wine.

Daryl bent down and gave Sophia a quick, clumsy peck on the cheek and then jerked his head away, hoping that was really what he was supposed to do. Sophia smiled, so he guessed it was.

[*]

Zach and Glenn were waiting for him at one of the pick-up trucks. Tyreese and Karen approached, each holding a wide broom. "We're going to ride down in the bed with you," Tyreese said, "since you don't have the Zamboni thing. And then we'll hop out when you're at the bottom, walk backward, and smooth away your tracks." He smiled at Karen. "We'll have a nice walk."

Karen pulled down the tailgate and slid in her broom.

Zach was heading over to the passenger's side when Beth ran up with a paper bag. "Made you some lunch," she said, and kissed him on the cheek as she handed it to him. He grinned and kissed her on her lips, which she tolerated for three seconds before pulling away.

Daryl rolled his eyes as he climbed inside, but he felt that strange feeling he'd felt last night – that warm wanting for others to be happy.

" _My_ girlfriend didn't fix _me_ lunch," Glenn grumbled as he slid in the backseat. Tyreese and Karen climbed into the bed and slammed up the tailgate with a clang.

"That's because Beth's the sweet sister," Zach said as he shut his door. "And Maggie's the tough one."

Glenn didn't disagree.

The pick-up dipped in and out of a pothole in the dirt road.

"Hey, can we stop in that gift shop again?" Zach asked.

Daryl glanced at him with a furrowed brow. "Hell for? Got all the snacks out it."

"I want to get Beth a promise ring."

"Fuck's a promise ring?"

Glenn leaned his head between the two front seats. "It's like a pre-engagement ring."

" _Pre_ -engagement?" Daryl asked. "Hell's that?"

"Like an engagement to be engaged," Glenn said.

"Don't make no damn sense. Cain't have an engagement to be engaged. Either ya are or ya ain't."

"It's more like a going steady ring," Zach explained. "You know, when you agree not to date other people."

"Who the hell else's she gonna date?"

Zach shrugged. "I don't know. Some teenage refugee who stumbles into camp, like Roscoe and Tyreese and Sasha did? Or some college kid you pick up somewhere, like you did me? Or maybe Carl in five years. I don't know. I mean, I've got to start thinking long-term. There's a shortage of resources in this world."

"Did you just refer to my girlfriend's little sister as a _resource_?" Glenn asked.

"Uh…."

"Think he did," Daryl said. "Whatchya gonna do 'bout it, Glenny boy? Want I should pull over so ya can wail on 'em?" Daryl would love to see that fight. He really wasn't sure which one would win. His money was on Zach for youth and size, but it was on Glenn for speed and sheer scrappiness.

"Whoa! Whoa!" Zach held up one hand. "No one needs to wail on anyone. Look, I really like Beth. She's cute and sweet and sings pretty."

"That's deep," Glenn told him. "Real deep."

"You know what's deep?" Zach asked him, half turning in his seat. "Almost the whole world getting wiped out by the living dead. That's fucking deep, man. I don't _need_ deep. I need cute and sweet."

"Maggie's not cute and sweet," Glenn said. "She's hot and bold." He grinned. "Which is ten times better. I've actually been thinking of asking her to marry me."

"Marry ya?" Daryl asked. "Ain't no pastors or JPs 'round here."

"Yeah," Glenn agreed, "but we could have a little ceremony or something. I know it hasn't been very long since we met, but, you know, a day in this world…it's like a month."

Glenn was right about that, Daryl thought. He felt like he'd been with Carol for years, not mere months. He just felt _that_ close to her.

"Yeah," Zach agreed. "And you don't exactly have a lot of options. Got to lock that up."

"How do you _know_ I don't have options?" Glenn shot back. "Maybe Karen or Michonne or Sasha would fall all over me if I wasn't with Maggie."

"Good thing you didn't say Beth," Zach told him.

"Beth's _much_ too young for me," Glenn said. "I like a mature, experienced woman."

Daryl snorted. "Yeah. Need someone to tutor ya."

Glenn frowned. "Believe it or not, but I wasn't a virgin before Maggie."

"Inflatable dolls don't count," Daryl told him. Zach laughed.

"Shut up," Glenn grumbled and crossed his arms over his chest.

[*]

On Main Street, Daryl wet four arrows with walker blood. Glenn stabbed three of the creatures, and Zach, who had made a workable if ugly silencer for his rifle in one of the garage shops, shot five with relatively little noise. The creatures had been feasting on the few remaining scraps of the Terminus men on the sidewalk in front of the cigar shop.

Farther down the street, four more walkers were licking up the last of the blood of the man Carol had stabbed and Roscoe had shot. The trio made their way over and slew them.

"If the Terminus people find these bones," Glenn reasoned, "they'll just think the walkers got them. They won't have any reason to look for human killers."

"Except we just killed a bunch of walkers," Zach said.

"They'll think their men did that," Daryl told him. "But then got overwhelmed." He took a step back and looked down at the pavement. "Just got to get rid of them footprints." Carol had apparently stepped in blood before running down the street. The prints of her combat boot grew progressively lighter as the blood wore off. "Don't look like a walker gait."

"How do we get rid of them?" Glenn asked.

"We could drag the walker bodies over them," Zach suggested. "Cover them up. It's not like they have any reasons to move dead walkers."

"Good idea, kid," Daryl said, and Zach smiled proudly. "You do it."

"Me?"

"Your idea," Daryl told him.

Zach crinkled his nose and went to work.

[*]

"Hurry up!" Daryl grumbled. Zach was taking forever to choose his promise ring for Beth. The frat boy finally plucked something out of the shattered case.

"I want a _real_ wedding band for Maggie," Glenn said. "Not some gift store crap. I guess I'll just cut one off a walker."

"Ewwwww!" Zach exclaimed at the same time Daryl said, "The fuck?"

"What?" Glenn asked. "What's wrong with that? I'll clean it before I give it to her!"

"Don't know shit 'bout romance," Daryl told him, "but that don't sound romantic."

"Yeah, man, that's not cool," Zach told him. "How about this?" He pointed to a silver band studded with flecks of clear glass.

"That's not real silver, you know. Or real diamonds. It's $45! That's like cubic zirconia."

"So? It's not like she's going to divorce you and pawn it," Zach reasoned.

Glenn sighed and plucked up the ring as well as another, plain silver one, which he first tried on his own finger.

"That's a girl's ring," Daryl told him.

"Well, that's all they have!" Glenn insisted. "And it fits." He slid both rings into his pocket.

They found the abandoned pick-up untouched, with a box of books and records in the bed. Next, they got Carol's pizza oven from Grills N' Things and checked insides all the grills and ovens for sauces they'd missed the first time. When they were loading up, Zach said, "Maybe we should check that paint-your-own pottery shop. It's the only place in this village we haven't hit."

"What could it possibly have?" Glenn asked.

"Maybe a gun behind the counter?" Zach suggested.

"Because people rob pottery shops all the time?" Glenn asked.

"Hell, got the time," Daryl said. "Might as well."

Daryl shattered the glass window. Once again, he thought how useful Carol's protective sleeves were. You could reach through shards and not get scraped. He unlocked the door. After they cleared the aisles, Zach exclaimed, "See!" He walked up to a display case with painted dishes that were surrounded by packages of curly pasta and fancy glass jars of olive oil. There were small jars of pesto as well. He began filling his backpack. "You never know what you might find."

"Godiva chocolate bars over here," Glenn admitted.

"N' guess what?" Daryl called from behind the register. "'S a 12-gauge behind the counter. And a full box of shotgun shells."

"See?" Zach said as he zipped up his backpack. "This is Georgia, right? You guys are nuts about guns."

"Aren't you the one who was on your high school rifle team?" Glenn asked.

"I didn't say it was a _bad_ thing." Zach walked over to the storage room and rattled the knob. "We found batteries in that other storage room," he said. "Let's check this one out." Without Darlene around to pick it, he just shot off the lock. It cost him two bullets, but the door pulled opened. Glenn swept a flashlight in the windowless room and Zach followed him inside while Daryl stood guard, the shotgun on his shoulder now and his crossbow in hand.

Glenn and Zach had only been in the closet a minute when Daryl heard voices approaching from outside the store.

"Shit!" he muttered to himself. Had a search team from Terminus come looking for their people _already_? Why so soon? Was there a temporary camp close by? Had they been scouting in different direction and expecting a rendezvous?

When it was clear the voices were about to reach the front window, Daryl slipped behind the door of the storage closet, shut it, and faced forward, leveling his bow.

"Uh...something wrong?" Glenn asked.

"Lights out," he hissed. "Quiet. We got company."

Zach faced the door with his rifle and Glenn switched off the flashlight. The closet went dark just as the voices entered the shop.


	66. The Long Con

Daryl could hear Glenn breathing beside him in the darkness. He strained to listen to the conversation unfolding in the pottery shop.

"Sweep left," came a masculine voice. "I'll clear right."

They were quiet while they cleared the shop. Daryl couldn't hear so much as a bootstep, but then a second, male voice said, "I would venture to conclude that this shop is entirely vacant."

"Shut up." The woman's voice was awfully close to the door, directly on the other side, but it faded a bit when she said, "And let us do our jobs here." It settled somewhere in the middle of the shop. "All clear."

"All clear," came the first man's voice. "But someone's been here recently."

"There's nothing in this village worth scavenging," said the woman.

"Her conclusion appears to be correct," said the second man, his voice fainter because he was farther away, likely by the front door. "I would put forth the theory that if there _was_ something of significant value to be obtained from these establishments, it would have been in that vehicle we passed. As was, there appeared to be only a few snacks, books, and primitive repositories of music."

"Primitive – what?" the woman snapped. "Would you _please_ speak English?"

"He's talking about the records," the first man said. "But whoever loaded that pick-up was killed and devoured by walkers. They might not have finished clearing the shops."

"Well this one's clearly a bust," the woman said. "So let's move on out."

Daryl's muscles began to relax when it seemed the woman had turned away from the door, but then the second man said, "I realize I have not been trained in situational observation. However, I nonetheless note that the door to the supply closet appears to have been damaged in order that someone might obtain entry. The fact does, I must confess, leave me with a feeling of unease and mild trepidation."

"Stay back," said the woman, her voice drawing nearer again. "Keep an eye out."

Daryl slid his finger to just above the trigger on his crossbow. He could sense Zach tensing and tightening his grip on his rifle beside him.

The door swung open. Daryl blinked against the sudden light.

A tall, burly redheaded man stood before them with the barrel of his rifle pointed straight at Daryl's head. The woman, a light-brown-skinned beauty with cool eyes, quickly got Glenn in her sights.

"Drop it," she demanded.

"Y'all drop it," Daryl said. "Three of us and two of you." Over the woman's shoulder, he could see the third man turn from the door and raise his hands above his head.

"I implore you not to shoot," the man said. "It would be entirely unnecessary and would lead to some inconvenience on your part."

Who the hell talked like that? The man had a mullet, too, like the kind Daryl's cousin Billy Ray wore for two years in the early 80s, before he finally realized what a dumbass he looked like and cut it short.

"We're on a very important mission," the redhead said. He had a long mustache that curled down and reminded Daryl of some of the soldiers in the old photos in Clevus's 15-volume Civil War book set. "We're taking this scientist to the nation's capital. He holds the key to the cure to this plague. We will stop at nothing, so I'm going to ask you one more time to lower your weapons."

"Ain't no _cure_ ," Daryl said. "And it looks like you found that asshole playing Dungeons and Dragons in his mama's basement."

"Hey. I used to play D&D," Glenn said defensively.

"I'm well trained," the redhead said. "If gunfire erupts, you're going to be on the losing end."

"You might kill one of us, but not all three of us," Zach replied. "And I'm pretty highly trained myself."

The woman turned her eyes languidly on him. "You look like you're about twelve."

"I'm twenty."

"Kid's a _crack_ shot," Daryl insisted. "Rifle Team Worldwide Super Champion. You sure you want to test us?"

"Look, we don't mean you any harm," Glenn said over his rifle. "We're scavenging just like you."

The redheaded man looked at the woman as if asking her if they should drop their guns.

"No way," she replied. "What if they're those cannibals from Terminus?"

"We aren't from Terminus," Glenn assured her. "Did you hear the radio warning?"

"Yeah," the redhead answered cautiously.

"I'm one of the people who recorded the warning. I did the one in Korean." He launched into his Korean warning to prove the fact.

The woman and the man caught each other's eyes and looked back at them.

"How about we all lower our weapons at once?" the man asked.

"On three?" Daryl replied.

"On three," the man agreed.

"One," the woman said.

"Two," Daryl said.

"Three," the redhead said, and all five weapons dropped.

Glenn sighed.

Zach shouldered his rifle. "Déjà vu all over again," he muttered. "Feel like we just did this a few weeks ago."

[*]

Carol couldn't stand the thought of staying in bed all day, though Sophia and Roscoe both lectured her when she showed up in the living room. Roscoe made her sit down on the couch, and Sophia brought her brunch on the coffee table.

Roscoe slid his cowboy hat on and said, "I'm goin' to help Sasha hunt birds, since Daryl's gone and Darlene's got a splitting headache. Y'all ladies be a'ight up here on your own? I can send up T-Dog or someone."

"You know how to _hunt_?" Sophia asked doubtfully.

"Well, no, but I thought I'd keep her company. Safety in numbers."

"We'll be fine," Carol assured him.

He nodded. "I'll send T-Dog up."

"I said we'll be- " But Roscoe was already out the door.

"What am I?" Carol asked Sophia. "An invalid?"

"You got _shot,_ Mama. Let people take care of you for a few days. For a _change_." She plucked up Carol's coffee cup. "I'll top you off."

Carol smiled and rested back against the couch. Her shoulder throbbed. Maybe she _could_ get used to being waited on for a change.

[*]

Daryl, Glenn, and Zach shared lunch with the newly met trio around the tailgate of the pick-up Carol and the others had left behind. The redhead had introduced himself as Abraham. The woman was Rosita, and the weird-talker was named Eugene.

"How come ya ain't got a weapon?" Daryl asked Eugene.

"While my intellectual capabilities are extensive and diverse," he answered, "I lack skills in the operation of militarized paraphernalia."

"Hell's that mean?" Daryl asked. "Ya ain't learned to shoot yet? With all this shit goin' on?"

"He relies on us for protection," Abraham explained. "It's my mission to get him safely to D.C."

"Who assigned you that mission?" Zach asked. "The military?"

"I assumed it," Abraham explained. "Because I was the one to find this man wandering the streets of Houston. I rescued him from almost certain death. Later, we found Rosita and her group under siege."

"Abraham rescued us and we joined his mission, but we lost everyone in my group by the time we got to Montgomery. The area around New Orleans was badly infested."

"The mission could use some more capable soldiers," Abraham said. "If you'd like to join us. Our supplies are running low, but we have enough rations for six people for three more nights. You can all come. We travel by van. It's parked behind these stores."

"Nah," Daryl said. "Don't think so."

"Why would you turn down the only hope of long-term survival we have?" Abraham asked.

"Well, it's just," Glenn said, "we already have a nice camp with people."

"Do you?" Rosita asked.

Daryl glared at him. Why had he gone and revealed all that? They didn't know if they could fully trust these people. Glenn returned his look sheepishly. "What?" he asked. "They seem like decent people."

"Where's your camp?" Rosita asked.

"Uh..." said Glenn, looking nervously at Daryl. "That's not really your business."

"You must be pretty well organized," Rosita said. "You have a permanent camp and armored supply runners?" She nodded to the studded sleeve on Daryl's arm. "And enough supplies that you're sharing your lunch with us without worry?"

"What does that matter?" Abraham said. "We have a mission to complete. It's not like we're going to be staying with them."

"Maybe for a few days," Rosita told him. "Abe, baby, we've been on the road for months. We could use a break."

"The mission can't endure a _break,_ " Abraham insisted.

"Her proposal is not without merit," Eugene said. "I for one could greatly benefit from the aforementioned respite."

Abraham sighed. "Fine. We'll spend a couple of days in their camp to store up our energy."

"Ain't no one invited y'all!" Daryl exclaimed.

"Come on, Daryl," Glenn said. "Don't you think the Council's at least going to want to hear about what this scientist knows?"

Daryl didn't think Eugene was really a scientist. It just didn't make any sense, that some lone man with a mullet was the only one to possess the solution to the horrors all around them, and all he needed to do was get to D.C. to stop it all. Daryl thought maybe Eugene was working the long-con. He'd known guys like that growing up, who didn't have the brawn to survive the backwoods, but they had the lying tongues and the quick minds that allowed them to worm their way into people's trust, until they got what they needed. Eugene wasn't that kind of con man, exactly, but he was _some_ kind.

Eugene must have felt Daryl examining him, because his eyes flitted away and around the shops.

Daryl sighed. "Y'all can come with us if ya want. But ya gotta help us clear whatever's left that's worth taking in this village first. Ya gotta obey our rules and brief our Council. And ya gotta surrender yer guns to us while yer there." That last part Daryl didn't think Abraham would agree to. He'd refuse, and these three would be on their way.

But he was wrong. "All right," Abraham said. "We can do that."

[*]

They loaded up all the charcoal from Grills N' Things and emptied out an overlooked storage closet in the back of the ransacked convenience store. Abraham selected several boxes of cigars from the cigar shop, along with a small humidor, and discovered an overlooked box of butane lighters. Daryl took the pipe tobacco he hadn't touched the first time, along with papers to roll his own cigarettes.

They caravaned back to the cabins, the van between the two pick-ups. Glenn brought up the tail, and Daryl drove the lead vehicle with Zach in the front passenger seat.

"Rosita's hot," Zach said.

"Ain't ya got a girlfriend?"

"Just because you're on a diet doesn't mean you can't look at the menu," he reasoned. "Don't you think it's weird that the women who survived the apocalypse are almost _all_ hot?"

Daryl shrugged. "Them's probably the ones strong men was most likely to rescue and defend in the beginnin'."

"I wonder what my Women's Studies professor would think of that theory."

"Hell ya take that for?" Daryl asked. "Carol said ya majored in math."

"I did. That was an elective. I thought it would be a good class to pick up girls. Turned out I was wrong."

"Glad I ain't never wasted no time in college."

"I guess it was a waste of time," Zach said, "given the way the world is now. But, hey, I sure did get laid a lot."

Daryl shot him a wary look. He was just beginning to _like_ the kid, and then Zach had to go and remind him he was a frat boy.

"But I have to be a _man_ in this world." Zach nodded to himself. "And a man settles down with one woman. Right?" He reached into his jacket pocket where he'd slipped Beth's promise ring.

"Think a man don't talk so damn much, is what I think."

Zach fell silent for almost ten minutes, and then he said, "Sometimes I think Beth's just yanking my chain, though. I'm not sure she loves me the way I love her."

"Beth's barely seventeen. She don't know what the hell love is. Neither do you." Neither had Daryl, before he'd met Carol. He suddenly wanted, very badly, to be _home._ He pressed down on the accelerator, and, from behind him, Abraham's van struggled to keep up.

[*]

After the goods were unloaded, the Council assembled in the living room of Daryl and Carol's cabin. They briefed Rosita and Abraham, dismissed them, and then called in Eugene by himself. The man entered hesitantly, looked around, and assumed the offered armchair. Carol, Maggie, and Sasha all sat on the couch, while Darlene took the armchair opposite Eugene and Daryl stood with his arm slung over the mantle of the fireplace.

"So tell us what you know about this outbreak," Sasha said, "and how you intend to stop it."

Eugene claimed to have been a part of a team of ten scientists working on the Human Genome Project to "weaponize diseases to fight weaponized diseases. Pathogens and microorganism with pathogens and microorganisms. Fire with fire."

"Mhmhm," Daryl murmured doubtfully from where he stood.

"So, the superflu that was spreading at the start of all this," Carol asked, "did it get loose from a government lab?"

"My scientific project is of the utmost secrecy," Eugene replied, "and I am not at liberty to discuss the details."

"None of that matters now," Sasha told him. "Whatever this thing was, it got out of hand. The world as we know it will never be the same, even if you do hold the key to the cure. So tell us what the hell is going on."

"As I have stated previously, I am not at liberty to -"

"- If you're really the only person left in this world who knows how to stop this plague," Maggie told him, "you better share that information with someone, in case something happens to you before you reach D.C."

"It sounds like a lot of people died keeping you alive," Carol agreed, "to protect the information you have in your head. What if they don't always succeed? If you would share that information, if we could make a tape recording of you explaining your plans for the cure – "

"- I couldn't possibly consent to do that," Eugene interrupted. "It would be futile to attempt to communicate the complexity of the scientific situation to lesser minds."

"I'm not saying _I_ would necessarily understand," Carol said. "But surely the scientists in D.C. would? And if we have the tapes as backup, if something were to happen to you – "

"- It is absolutely imperative that no harm should befall me. I am the sole surviving scientist from the Human Genome Project. No one else possess the scientific skill and knowledge to eradicate the scourge of this weaponized disease that has consumed us."

While Daryl listened silently, the women continued to grill Eugene with questions. His answers were evasive, and eventually they began to contradict one another. Darlene was the first one to call him on his story: "You ain't a scientist at all, are you?"

"I beg your pardon," Eugene replied. "I most assuredly am. I would not expect someone of your limited education to appreciate the complexity of the project with which I have – "

"-Honey," Darlene interrupted him, "Let me put it to you this way. If you _are_ a government scientist, and you _do_ have the knowledge to cure this epidemic, well, in a day or two, you'll be on your way to D.C. with only two people to protect you in the harsh of winter in a world infested with the walking dead, cannibals, and murderous men."

Eugene swallowed. His adam's apple bobbed. "And were I not the aforementioned government scientist, what do you speculate the alternative outcome would be?"

"Maybe you could stay with us," said Carol, looking from Sasha to Darlene to Daryl to Maggie. "If the Council agrees."

"You can do whatever work…" Darlene looked Eugene over skeptically "…you're _capable_ of doing. What _are_ you capable of doing, honey? Besides spinning yarns?"

"I possess numerous practical capabilities, including the capacity to create bullets if and when suitable materials should present themselves."

"We already got plenty people here who can reload ammunition," Darlene said. "It ain't rocket science, and half of us grew up in the country. What _else_ can you do?"

"I have a repository of diverse knowledge that can be accessed at a moment's notice. My problem-solving skills are of the highest order of – "

"- Can you clean toilets?" Darlene asked. "Because we need someone to clean the toilets. We also need someone to help collect and burn the trash at our controlled burn site by the pond."

"Allow me a moment to contemplate the drab destiny you have set before me." Eugene sucked in his bottom lip and appeared to think.

"Yeah, well, you better weigh it against the alternative of continuing onto D.C. through hell and high water," Darlene told him.

Eugene's lip, now slightly chapped, slid out form between his teeth. "At this time, I feel it appropriate to inform you that I do indeed possess janitorial expertise that will be of immense value to your established community."

"Then we'll consider admitting you," Sasha said. "But we need to discuss it first."

The Council asked Eugene to wait outside the cabin while they conferred.

"Three more mouths to feed," Daryl muttered.

"What are we going to do?" Carol asked. "Say they can't stay?"

"Abraham has military skills," Sasha said. "I'm sure he'll make an excellent watchman, and if we ever have to deal with a herd of walkers, or if Terminus tracks us down here, he'll be an asset."

"Rosita's got skills, too," Darlene added. "Any woman who grows up with six blue collar brothers is bound to pick up a thing or two. What did she say she could do? House repairs, car repairs, wiring explosives…Hell, she'll come in handy."

"Gonna have to settle another cabin," Daryl said.

"Might be nice for more people to have their own rooms anyway," Sasha suggested. "For privacy. The next cabin down from ours has three bedrooms."

"After they find out the truth about Eugene," Carol said, "maybe he shouldn't be in the same cabin as them."

"Cain't be in a cabin by themselves neither," Daryl said. "They's new. Someone's got to keep an eye on 'em 'til we know for sure they's a'ight."

"I'll keep an eye on Abraham and Rosita," Sasha said. "The three of us can share a new cabin."

"And who else?" Darlene asked. "That leaves an empty room."

"Three bedrooms, three people," Sasha told her.

"Oh, honey, those two are clearly fucking. They aren't going to need separate rooms."

"You don't know that."

Darlene gave her a look of disbelief. "Come on. Why wouldn't they be? A good-looking man and a good-looking woman, together on the road for months?"

"Need another man in that cabin," Daryl said. "Case'n Abraham ain't safe. Put Roscoe in the third room." He was thinking of getting Roscoe off his couch and getting more privacy in this cabin. Only after he said it did he realize it might give Roscoe more of a chance with Sasha. The man ought to thank him for that.

Sasha laughed. "I don't think I need _Roscoe_ to protect me from Abraham."

"How about Morgan?" Maggie suggested. "The big cabin's overcrowded, and he's on the couch there."

The new arrangement was agreed upon. "So then there's an empty room in yer cabin?" Daryl asked Sasha, still hoping he could get rid of Roscoe.

"No, I was sharing with Karen, remember? There's only two bedrooms in that one. Michonne and Andre are in the second bedroom, and Tyreese is on the couch."

"Cain't keep track all this," Daryl muttered.

"We need an address book," Maggie said with a smile.

"So," Carol asked, looking across the room at Daryl, "who's letting Abraham and Rosita know the truth about Eugene?"

Daryl sighed.

"I'll go with you," Sasha told him.


	67. A New Mission

Eugene walked between Daryl and Sasha down the hill toward the big cabin where Abraham and Rosita were conversing with Glenn on the porch. They passed the park area where Carl and Sophia sat on the swings, jackets buttoned tight, twisting the chains into knots and then letting loose into laughing spins. On the opposite edge of the park, Tyreese, Morgan, and T-Dog were putting the finishing touches on the greenhouse. Rick fenced off a large outdoor garden plot near the treeline, while Karen and Michonne filled pots with fresh soil. Meanwhile, Roscoe tinkered with some kind of car-battery-operated electric greenhouse heating fan system he'd put together.

Eugene came to a stop beside the musician. "Your heating apparatus would be more efficient if you were to transfer these two power inputs in such a fashion as to enhance the…"

In Daryl's ears, his words sounded like the wah-wah-wah of adults in a Charlie Brown cartoon. Roscoe tapped his cowboy hat upward, wiped his brow with the back of his jean jacket, and said, "You an electrician?"

"I have been known to tinker with electrical circuits upon occasion," Eugene said.

"Well, you can tinker with me then," Roscoe told him. "Could use the help."

Eugene nodded.

"Looking especially lovely today, Sasha," Roscoe said.

"I look like I _always_ do," she told him.

"Well..." He smiled. "You always look especially lovely."

Sasha urged Eugene further down the hill, and Daryl followed. The faux scientist slowed his place. "I should forewarn you that when the truth of my situation is communicated to Abraham and Rosita, they may not receive that information in a positive fashion."

"Really?" Sasha asked. "You think they might be upset? After Rosita lost her _entire_ group keeping you alive?" Shaking her head, she walked faster down the hill.

Eugene came to a complete stop, and Daryl nudged him on with a shoulder bump to his back. Eugene tripped forward two steps, steadied himself, and began to walk reluctantly on. Abraham and Rosita caught sight of them, said something to Glenn, and then descended the front porch stairs to meet them in the roadway.

[*]

Daryl had never seen a man lose his shit the way Abraham did when Sasha told him the truth. Abraham lunged forward with a growl and closed his hand around Eugene's throat. Daryl, with the help of Rosita, wrestled him off while Sasha inserted herself like a shield between the fake scientist and the soldier.

As she helped Daryl to hold Abraham back, Rosita tried to soothe him with words. Eventually, the big man's rage broke and he stumbled back, and some other emotion overwhelmed him. He staggered off two yards down the dirt road and fell to his knees on the gravely earth like a man broken.

Eugene, who was practically hyperventilating, struggled to recover his breath.

"Don't hold that outburst against him," Rosita told Daryl and Sasha. "He's ordered his _entire_ life around this mission. It's been his sole purpose for living for the past few months."

"I get that," Sasha said. "What I don't get it is why _you're_ not more upset. You're the one who lost all your people."

"Because I'm not in shock." Rosita looked at Eugene disdainfully. "I've suspected the truth for weeks." Eugene looked down at the ground. "But I didn't have the heart to tell Abraham." She took a step toward Eugene. "Because I knew it would crush his soul, you lying piece of shit." She spit in face, turned, and walked away to where Abraham was kneeling. She knelt down beside him and put an arm across his broad shoulders.

Eugene wiped the spittle from his face with his fingertips.

"Come on," Sasha told him. "I'll show you where the scrub brush and cleaners are so you can get to work on all the toilets."

[*]

At dinner time, Daryl drove Carol down to the big cabin in the golf cart. When he came around to her side and offered his arm to help her out, she felt at once flattered and annoyed. "I'm not an invalid, you know. You didn't need all this when you were shot."

"Yer shot's worse," he said as he helped her down. Sophia slid out of the back of the golf cart, limped a few steps, and then walked more normally.

"Didn't think you'd signed up to be an orderly when you fell in with us, did you?" she asked.

"Shush it."

Carol refrained from saying anything when he pulled her chair out for her at the table.

"Such a _gentleman_ ," Michonne teased as she sat down on the other side of Carol. Her eyes smiled over the table at Rick.

They'd had to bring in another folding table, add a third stool to the kitchen bar, and the dining area was crowded.

Eugene announced that the meal was "perhaps the best nourishment" he had "received since the onset of the apocalypse."

A guttural rumble sounded in Abraham's throat, and he glared across the table at Eugene as he angrily stabbed a canned yam with his fork.

Rosita shot Abraham a look of caution. Then she glanced around the three tables and the kitchen bar and asked, "So, who recorded the warning about Terminus in Spanish?"

"That'd be me," Roscoe said from his bar stool. He tipped his cowboy hat in her direction.

"Well your Spanish sucks," Rosita told him.

"As do your manners, ma'am," he replied.

"Sorry." Rosita poked at her food. "I've had a bad day."

"Well bless your heart," Roscoe said in his smooth southern drawl.

"That's southern for _fuck you_ ," Zach announced. "First thing I learned when I moved to Georgia." Beth looked at him with wide, shocked, eyes, and he flushed red and looked from Carl to Sophia to Andre, who were all sitting at the kids table with him. "I'm sorry," he said. "I wasn't thinking. I'm – "

"Fuck you!" Andre cried excitedly. "Fuck you!" He clapped his hands. "Fuck you!" Half the kitchen erupted in laughter while Beth shushed Andre back into silence and made sure he had some food to chew on.

"Sorry, Michonne," Zach said.

"He didn't learn it form you," she assured him.

After dinner, T-Dog went to relieve Morgan in the watchtower so he could eat. Bob set to work on the dishes, Carl and Sophia wiped down the counters, and Zach took down the card tables and mopped the floor. Everyone else settled into the living room, some on the couch or armchairs, others on barstools or folding chairs, and still others sitting on the floor. That was when the musical entertainment began.

Beth sang a song first, accompanied by Roscoe on guitar. Then Roscoe asked, "Shall I play you some Tex-Mex, Rosita?"

She glared at him. "Just because I grew up in San Antonio doesn't mean I like Tex-Mex. I _hate_ it."

"Well, what musical strains _would_ soothe the beast?" he asked sarcastically.

"Sorry, but we've had some really bad news, today," Rosita said. "In case you didn't know." She returned her gaze to Eugene.

"I know all 'bout it," Roscoe said. "Word travels fast in a small town."

Rosita picked at a string in the area rug where she was sitting in front of Abraham's chair. "I like Simon and Garfunkel," she admitted. "Bob Dylan. Joan Baez. Stuff like that."

Roscoe grinned. "Well, then you're in luck. Let me think of a song that suits you." He rubbed the dark stubble that lined his chin and looked up toward the ceiling for a moment before returning his hand to the guitar. "This next one's by Bob Dylan, but I'm gonna modify it a tad." He began to strum and sing:

 _Rosita, come closer,  
shut softly your watery eyes  
The pangs of your sadness shall pass  
as your senses will rise._

Rosita settled back against Abraham's legs. Maggie eased into Glenn's embrace on the couch. Carol, who was on the far end of the couch, wished Daryl would come closer and do the same instead of hovering on a stool in the corner by himself.

 _I can see that your head  
Has been twisted and fed  
With worthless lies from the mouth_

Eugene looked down at the floor and swallowed.

 _I can tell you are torn  
Between stayin' and goin'  
Back to the South  
You've been fooled into thinking  
That the finishin' end is at hand,  
Yet there's no one to beat you  
No one to defeat you  
'Cept the thoughts of yourself feeling bad_

Rosita put a hand on Abraham's booted foot, and the big man finally broke his cool gaze from Eugene. He looked off into a corner of the room.

 _I'd forever talk to you  
But soon my words  
They would turn into a meaningless ring  
For deep in my heart  
I know there's no hope I can bring  
Everything passes  
Everything changes…_

Carol felt a hand come down on her shoulder. She strained her neck to look back and found Daryl standing behind the couch. She'd been so busy listening to Roscoe that she hadn't noticed him making his way over. She covered his hand with hers as Roscoe finished the song.

Abraham let out a long sigh. "What missions do you need fulfilled here?" he asked.

"We have threats and potential enemies," Sasha told him. "Terminus, if any of them are looking for us. There's a place called Woodbury with an insane ruler Karen has told us about. We'd like to keep him from stumbling on these cabins during a supply run our scouting missions. And there are still walkers that make their way to camp from time to time. Our mission is survival, fortification, and self-defense. Do you think you could help us out with that?"

Abraham nodded solemnly. "I think I can."

[*]

A fourth cabin was settled by Morgan, Sasha, Abraham, and Rosita. The weather took a sudden warm turn, though it was early December. Carol was forbidden by both Bob and Darlene to resume cooking and sewing, and so she spent half the day lounging on the couch with the windows open, reading Ray Bradbury short stories and drinking tea. She even took a long, warm bubble bath in the tub, which Sophia helped her to draw using cold water from the pumps and boiling water from the kettle. It felt like a personal vacation.

"I'm going out to play," Sophia told her once Carol was settled in beneath the suds. "I'll leave you your book."

[*]

Daryl bagged two rabbits that morning and had just finished skinning them when Rosita emerged from the treeline nearest the stream. Nine large trout dangled from her shoulder.

When she approached the skinning table, he asked, "How the hell ya manage that?" No one had accomplished such a feat since the warmest days in October.

"I learned to fish from one of my older brothers. And I picked up more tricks from one of my boyfriends. But it'll get cold again. The fish will descend to the bottom of the stream to stay warm. It'll be next to impossible to catch any this winter."

"Have those tonight," he said, plucking up the skinned rabbits in one hand by their feet. "Hang these in the smokehouse for later." He pointed with his hunting knife to a clean spot on the table. "Scale 'em there."

When he emerged from the smokehouse, Daryl found Sophia on a swing, lazily pushing herself with one foot, barely moving back and forth, as she talked with Carl on another swing. "Y'all need to help Rosita scale them fish," he told them, and they reluctantly got off the swings and wandered over to the skinning and scaling table. "Don't forget to wash down the table after!" He hollered over his shoulder as he headed up the hill.

He went to the bathroom of his own cabin to wash up and found Carol in the tub. Daryl came to a complete stand still and raked his eyes over her. The suds had popped and vanished and he could see her pert breasts and soft skin beneath the lightly rippling water. "Hey," he said as he tried, but failed, to look away.

She smiled. "Hey. It's still a little warm. Want to join me?"

"Best not. Yer shoulder. Tub ain't big 'nuff for two. Bound to jostle ya 'round." That, and he wasn't used to being entirely naked with her in broad daylight with no blankets. Besides, what if Sophia came home to wash up after scaling those fish and found them together in the tub? He turned, partly to wash up in the sink, and partly to hide the rock hard erection he was embarrassed had formed so quickly.

"Your loss," she told him. "I'm great at washing backs. And other parts."

[*]

After a day of standing watch, patrolling the perimeter of the camp, examining the mountain roadway and forest for threats, and killing a single walker, Abraham grew restless. The next morning, he asked the Council to call a general meeting of all members of the camp to propose a new mission and "recruit volunteers."

Though the weather had fallen ten degrees again, the big cabin was warm when everyone crowded into the living room. Abraham presented his plans for a defensive fence that would be lined with barbwire at the top and spiked with pointed branches that thrusted outward. "The walkers will get caught up on the pikes when they attempt to enter the camp," he said. "Men won't be stopped, but they'll at least be slowed down." He opened a map on the coffee table. "Karen says there's a lumber yard here," he pointed to a spot about a ninety miles south and west of the cabins, "near where she grew up. I can lead a team to secure tools and other materials."

"I thought we were hunkering down for the winter," Rosita said.

"It's only December," Abraham reasoned. "The mountain won't likely ice until January. We better get this done now."

"Look, I understand you need a purpose," Rosita told him, "but we _just_ got here."

"I'll go with him," Sasha volunteered.

Rosita looked at her peevishly. "I'll _go._ I just thought we were waiting until spring for any more supply runs."

"I'll go also," Morgan said. "No sense in me staying in that cabin alone. Just close it up while we're all gone."

"We're going to need a big man," said Abraham, looking directly at Tyreese. "To help us load that lumber."

"Uh..." Tyreese looked at Karen, who shook her head slightly. "Yeah, I think I better stay here. Help cut down branches and prepare those pikes."

"This mission will require your brawn," Abraham told him.

"My brother's not really mission material," Sasha said with an affectionate smirk.

This clearly peeved Tyreese, who stepped forward. "No, I'm in. I want to help."

"The Council still has to approve all this, you know," Darlene warned them. "Should we take a vote, now? On the mission and the assigned team?"

"One moment, if I may." Eugene hesitantly ventured out of the circle of people who were crowded together. "While Abraham and gang are in the process of obtaining building materials," he suggested as he looked over the map on the coffee table, "you may wish to travel an additional twenty miles to the warehouse of Solis Georgia." He pointed to a spot on the map.

"What's Solis Georgia?" Carol asked.

"An alternative energy company that produces an array of products," Eugene answered, "the most noteworthy of which are solar panels. The kerosene, coal, propane, and batteries we possess will quite easily convey us through the winter months. But come spring we will have depleted over half of our resources. These solar panels could transform our future energy situation from dangerous to hunky dory."

"Ya know how to wire and use 'em?" Daryl asked.

"I have a vague notion obtained from books and documentaries," Eugene replied, "but I believe Roscoe underwent a semester-long course in the use of solar energy when he was considering pursuing a career as an electrician, prior to his return to the country music biz, as we like to call it."

The Council turned to Roscoe, who looked nervous. "I did. It's been awhile, and I only had a little hands-on experience with solar during my apprenticeship. But Eugene and I can _try_ to get them up and running."

"You just need the panels?" Abraham asked.

"No," Roscoe said. "We'll need a power inverter, storage batteries, the appropriate wires, and charge controllers."

"How are we supposed to know what all that is?" Sasha asked.

"Better come back with everythin' ya need," Daryl said. "'Cause y'all gonna burn through half our gas on this trip."

Roscoe sighed. "Reckon I'm gonna have to go with y'all."

Abraham picked up the map and studied the spot where Solis Georgia was located. "Thanks, Eugene," he said with a nod. "It's good to see you aren't completely useless."

"I have not yet finished dispensing all of my advice."

"No?" Abraham raised an eyebrow and lay the map on the coffee table again.

Eugene stabbed a finger down on a country road. "According to my research using the three phone books I located in our cabin, there's a silo positioned along this corridor. It serves as a repository of sorghum bicolor."

"Hell's that?" Daryl asked.

"Also known as jowari, durra, and great millet," Eugene replied. "A grass species."

"Hell we need grass for?" Daryl muttered.

"A grass species," Eugene continued, "cultivated for its grain, which is used for food. And here's the proverbial kicker - it possess drought-resistance qualities. A supply of this grain could help to secure our culinary futures going forward."

"We're going to need the van and three pick-ups to haul all this stuff," Abraham said. "And maybe we ought to have a medic along with us, in case we run into trouble." He looked at Bob. "You were an Army medic?"

Bob nodded. "If going will get me out of dishwashing and laundry duty, I'm in. And the camp will still have Darlene."

The Council approved the mission and the team by a vote of four to one. Carol thought they should wait until spring instead of risking a journey at the start of winter, and she thought too many valuable people were leaving at once. She was most worried about Roscoe, who had become like one of the family to her.

T-Dog was put in charge of a construction team of seven people, which would build the fence when the supply team returned. For now, they were to go ahead and start gathering and carving branches.

"Given the distance, the number of destinations and road conditions," Michonne said. "This mission could take a few days. Maybe we should elect a temporary substitute to fill Sasha's place on the Council. You can't break a tie with four members."

Rick was elected to fill the spot until Sasha returned. That night, in bed, Carol wondered aloud if he would relinquish it as easily as he had assumed it.

"Rick ain't as power hungry as ya think," Daryl assured her. "He took not gettin' on the Council a'ight."

"He wanted a re-count."

"Yeah, but he cooled off. Stepped into the background. 'Sides, anyone can petition the Council with ideas. Ain't like we do much."

"Except make all of the final decisions," she said.

"Mhmmm..." Daryl switched off the kerosene lamp. It was silent for a while, and Carol thought he'd gone to sleep. But then he said, "So..." He trailed off.

"So...what?"

"When...uh...when the doc say it's be a'ight for us to...uh..."

"Get back in the saddle?" she asked.

"Mhmhm."

"Bob and Darlene both said no vigorous activity for two weeks while this wound heals. I could risk re-opening it. So unless you can do it without moving..."

"Might be difficult. Ya make me wanna move. A lot. Hard."

She chuckled. She turned her head to him. "But we can kiss."

"Mhmm? Know somethin'?"

"What?"

"Like kissin' ya." He inched closer in the darkness, and his lips found hers.

[*]

Carol and Sophia walked down the roadway with Roscoe when he left the next morning. Daryl was already in the forest hunting.

"You seem nervous," Sophia told him. "Is it because you lost Andrea on your run to Terminus?"

"Nothin' to worry 'bout, peanut," Roscoe told her and ruffled her hair.

She jerked her head away. "Don't call me peanut. I'm almost thirteen."

"Really?" Roscoe asked. "When's that happen?"

"Six days before Christmas."

"Aww...dang. Bet that sucked growing up?"

"Yeah," Sophia said. "Combined presents always."

"That's not true," Carol told her. "I tried to keep them separate."

"Well, tell you what," Roscoe said. "When I get back from this run, I'm gonna write you a special birthday song."

Sophia grinned. "Then you better come back. Why don't they send Eugene instead? He knows what all that stuff is, too."

"Eugene ain't gonna go. Don't trust those two to protect him no more now that he ain't nobody."

"Well," Sophia said in a teasing voice, "Now at least you get to spend extra time with Saaaasha..."

"Shhh!" Roscoe said with a finer to his lips as they approached the vehicles that had been drawn out for the journey.

"What the hell is that?" asked Abraham as he looked at the guitar on Roscoe's back.

"Just don't fight it," Sasha told him. "It's easier that way." She leveled her gaze at Roscoe. "But if we don't have room for it on the way back, you ditch it. It's not like you don't have three more."

"Yes, ma'am."

Abraham shook his head and told Rosita to take up the tail. "I don't trust anyone else to have my back." Rosita nodded and headed for the third pick-up, while Abraham climbed into the lead van.

"Guess yer ridin' with me, brown sugar," Roscoe told Sasha with a wink.

But when Morgan and Tyreese climbed into the first of the three pick-ups, and Bob took the driver's seat of the second, that left only shotgun seats.

"I'm riding with Abraham in the van," Sasha told Roscoe as she headed toward the front of the caravan.

"Fine," Roscoe called after her. "I'll just ride with the gorgeous Latina princess and regale her with tales of my days in the country music biz."

"I'll try not to be jealous," Sasha said sarcastically as she opened the door of Abraham's van.

Roscoe frowned. "Sorry," Sophia told him sympathetically and then gave him a hug goodbye. Carol hugged him next, saying, "Take care of yourself, Roscoe. You're family, you know."

"Well, yeah, I'm kin to your man."

"That's not what I meant."

Roscoe smiled, tipped his hat to them both, and headed for Rosita's pick-up.

Carol and Sophia made their way back to the cabin.

"He's going to be all right, isn't he, Mom?" Sophia asked. Carol noticed she'd stopped calling her Mama. For a year, she'd switched back and forth between the two, Mom and Mamma, but these days, it was _just_ Mom. Carol felt a very ordinary pang of loss, but that pang reminded her of the positive fact that Sophia actually had a chance to grow up here.

"He's going to be just fine," Carol said, more confidently than she felt. "They _all_ will be."


	68. Married

Three days passed, and the supply team did not return. Carol suppressed her worry. They'd had three places to go, after all, and not all of the roads were navigable.

The greenhouse was filled with pots and plots and planted with seeds and heated with the contraption Eugene completed.

The temperature dropped suddenly. Gloves and hats came out. The wood stoves went to work heating the cabins, and extra blankets were rounded up. A coal pit was erected in the park, so people could stop and warm themselves when working outside.

That night, Carol savored Daryl's slow kisses in bed, beneath the heavy weight of two comforters. Since he'd started making his own cigarettes, he smelled of sweet pipe tobacco, and she explored the subtle tastes of his tongue. Because of the medic's orders not to engage in anything "vigorous," they'd spent the last few nights making out like two teenagers stuck on second base.

There was something strangely thrilling about the step backward in their physical relationship. It gave them a chance to explore each other in tender and subtle ways, but it left them both frustrated in the end. Tonight, Carol could feel Daryl's erection straining against the fabric of his sweat pants and pressed against her thigh. She dragged her lips from his and said, "I should at least do something for you."

"'S 'aight," he told her, but when she slipped her hand into his sweat pants, he didn't protest. He murmured her name against her neck, told her how good it felt, and was soon shuddering into her hand.

She'd only meant to satisfy him, but the sound of his voice in her ear had pushed her from turned-on to downright needy. "My turn," she pleaded.

"Roll on yer back," he told her. "I'll be careful."

She did, easing the arm with her wounded shoulder down gently against the mattress.

He pushed up her shirt and worked his way down beneath the covers, trailing kisses as he went. Her hands curled the sheets into tight clumps when he slid off her sweat pants and panties and began teasing her inner thigh with his tongue.

They both cleaned up later using a washbasin they kept on the dresser, a porcelain bowl that looked like something out a Victorian novel. The water was frigid and they were soon snuggling under the covers again, Carol lying on her good side with Daryl's arm resting across her waist and her bad shoulder leaned back against him.

He kissed her shoulder, above the still-healing wound.

"Would you get that light?" she asked. The kerosene lamp still flickered low on his nightstand.

"Mhmmhm."

He rolled over toward it, but the flame didn't go down. Instead she heard him rustling in his nightstand drawer. When he turned back, he said, "Got ya somethin' on that run."

Daryl wasn't a textbook Romeo, but he was romantic in his own practical way. So she wasn't expecting jewelry when she turned to face him. A ring studded with fake, red jewels rested between his fingertips. "Red's yer second favorite color, right?"

"How'd you know that?"

He shrugged. "Ya said so once. Didn't have no yellow one."

She smiled and took the ring. "It's pretty," she said. It looked like it had come out of a cracker jack box, though she'd never tell him that. He must have chosen the sparkliest, fakest-looking one in the case. Daryl no doubt assumed more was better when it came to faux flecks of rubies.

He raised his eyes tentatively to hers. "Thought ya might like it."

"I love it," she lied. Carol tried it on. It was so loose it slid right off.

"Sorry. Didn't think 'bout the size."

"Well, Eugene is a _vast repository of diverse knowledge_. Maybe he can tighten it for me."

Daryl chuckled. Then he toyed with the comforter. "Thought uh…you could wear it…so uh...ya know? So everyone knows."

"So everyone knows what?"

"That we's together."

"I'm sure everyone knows that, Daryl." Disappointment began to creep across his face, and she realized that maybe he was asking something more serious than she'd realized. "I'll be proud to wear it," she said.

"Proud?"

"Yes," she told him with a smile. " _Proud_."

The flickering flame of the lamp made his eyes look wet as he leaned in to kiss her. He took the ring from her fingers. "Keep it on the nightstand for now." He rolled over. The ring clinked against the dresser, he turned down the lamp, and the room went black.

They found each other in the darkness.

[*]

Another day passed, and still the supply party had not returned.

"Maybe we should send a scouting party to look for them," Rick suggested.

"Either they're alive or they ain't," Daryl reasoned.

"Thank you, Captain Obvious," Maggie said dryly.

"He means," Darlene said, "If we go lookin'...let's be honest. We're lookin' for dead bodies or walkers. And there ain't any one of us who wants to find that."

"They had a lot of tasks," Carol said. "And we don't know what those roads are like. Maybe it's just taking them a while. There's _seven_ of them, well armed. Two were in the Army. If _they_ can't make their way back, we'd just be risking more lives going after them."

The Council voted to wait three more days and re-consider sending a scouting party then.

[*]

The next day, Beth and Zach petitioned the Council for a room re-assignment. Beth wanted to move into the master bedroom of the big cabin with Zach, and they wanted to move Bob into her old room when he returned.

"Ain't she a bit young to be shackin' up?" Daryl asked.

"I agree with Daryl," Maggie said. "Besides, we shouldn't reassign Bob without him even being here to state a preference."

"I'm sure he'll prefer a room of his own," Rick said, "to sleeping at the foot of Zach's bed."

"Bit young," Daryl repeated. Beth wasn't even a full five years older than Sophia. And Sophia was his _little_ girl!

"She's seventeen, for Christsake!" Darlene exclaimed. "Even before the apocalypse, that was the legal age of consent in half the states. And us tellin' them they can't shack up isn't gonna change what they do. It's just going to change when and where they do it."

"I'm with Darlene on this one," Rick said.

"'S 'cause ya got a boy and not a girl," Daryl told him. He looked at Carol, expecting her to back him up.

"I agree with Darlene and Rick," she said. "Beth's a woman now. And Zach's a decent young man."

"He is," Maggie admitted reluctantly. "But I don't know how my little sister ended up with the _master_ while Glenn and I got the study."

"Want to move?" Rick asked her.

"Not really. We do have our own library in there."

And so Bob's bed was moved out of the master bedroom, and Beth's things were moved in.

[*]

Daryl, who was sitting on the living room floor, wove a dry twig into the ghillie suit he was making for camouflage. Now that the trees were mostly bare, he was too easy for game to spot. He'd never catch a deer if he didn't look more like the forest.

High flames sizzled and snapped in in the fire place. Sophia put her book down on the coffee table and asked, "So are Beth and Zach married now?"

Daryl glanced at Carol, who didn't even look up from her crossword puzzle. So he went back to work on his ghillie suit.

When no one answered her question, Sophia asked it again.

Daryl pretended not to hear.

Finally, Carol said, "Well, honey, sometimes people live together without being married."

"But _you two_ are married, right?" Sophia asked.

Carol's pencil froze over her crossword. She looked at Daryl, who studied his suit fiercely.

"Aren't you?" Sophia asked, turning her head from one adult to the other.

Daryl could feel Carol looking at him. "Yeah," he muttered. He peered up from his work at Carol. "Ain't we?"

She smiled. "Yes. I'd say we are. As married as two people can be in this world, anyway." She extended her fingers, and the red jewels on the ring Eugene had sized – the ring she'd told Daryl she would be _proud_ to wear - sparkled in the firelight.

Daryl, feeling relief unwind every tense muscle in his body, plunged his hand into the pile of twigs he'd collected in a cardboard box. He weaved another thin, flexible twig into his suit.

Carol returned to her crossword. "What's an eight-letter word for – "

Sophia gasped. "It's snowing!" She stared open-mouthed at the window. Daryl had not yet battened down the shutters for the night. "Can I go out and play in it?"

"It's late," Carol said. "And it's getting dark."

Daryl remembered how excited he was to see snow as a child. It was a rare sight in Georgia, though it would likely be more common this high up in the mountains. He laid his ghillie suit aside. "'Course ya can, girl! C'mon, get yer boots on!"

[*]

Carol slid on her coat and boots and came out to stand on the porch. Daryl and Sophia were running around in the middle of the road and catching snowflakes on their outstretched tongues. She laughed to see Daryl sharing Sophia's childlike delight in the snow.

From the road below, beneath the twinkling stars and the big, glowing moon, Carl Grimes ran up toward their cabin. Rick and Michonne trailed behind him while Andre, all bundled up, toddled slightly ahead of the couple.

"It's snowing! It's snowing!" Carl yelled as he ran.

"I know! I know!" Sophia yelled back.

By now, there was only a half inch dusting on the ground, but that didn't stop Carl and Sophia from desperately attempting to make snowballs. What they ended up chucking at each other was more like mud balls.

"Hey, Daryl, heads up!" Rick shouted, and Daryl turned just in time to get smacked in the face by a mud-snowball.

"Hell no!" he yelled back as he wiped the snowy mud from his face. Soon he was rustling up his own ball of mud and snow.

Meanwhile, Carl Grimes motioned to Andre. "Join our team," he told the little boy, and handed him a ball, which the boy promptly threw at Carl. "No!" Carl scolded him. "It's kids against dads!"

"I think it's dads against dads," Michonne said as she mounted the porch stairs and stood beside Carol. She let out a low chuckle. " _Boys_."

Carol smiled. Daryl was chasing Rick down the hill now and pelting him good. Rick took cover behind a big rubber tire in the playground. Daryl went after him, only to get pelted in the back of the head by a snowball from the watchtower.

"Who's up there?" Carol asked, squinting to try to make out the figure.

"T-Dog," Michonne said. "He's got a good vantage point, but not a lot of snow. Just what he can get off the railing and platform."

Andre's giggles drifted up into the night air as he played with Carl and Sophia, intermixed with the trash talk of the feuding men. Carol glanced at Michonne. "So, you and Rick…" she asked with a smile. "You've been spending a lot of time together."

Michonne's teeth lit up the night, and she shrugged with one shoulder. "I don't know," she said. "We both lost someone not that long ago. But – "

"- Truck!" T-Dog shouted from the watchtower. "Truck! Not one of ours!"

Daryl came tearing up the road from the playground, shouting at the kids to get inside the cabin. He burst through the front door and grabbed his crossbow. Michonne was unsheathing her katana when he returned to the porch. "Stay inside," he told them. "Lock up. Guard the kids."

Michonne nodded to him. Carl Grimes scooped up Andre, heavy as he was, and lugged the squirming little boy up the porch stairs as Sophia limped her way quickly inside.

Once everyone was in, Carol locked the door and went into the bedroom to grab her AR-15. She made sure it was loaded and shouldered it, temporarily forgetting her wound. When the pain shot through her, she transferred the gun to the other shoulder. "Where's Sophia?" she asked anxiously when she entered the living room to find Michonne peering out the window with her hand on the hilt of her katana. Carl was sitting with Andre on the couch and calming him down with a game of patty cake.

"Right here, Mom," said Sophia as she emerged from her bedroom with her .22 youth rifle in her hand.

Carol's instinct was to tell her to put that thing away. She didn't like that Daryl let her keep it in her room, even if Rick and Zach had both trained her to use it properly. But Daryl had insisted it was a different world, and Sophia needed the protection in case they ever couldn't get to her. "Sides," Daryl had reasoned, "kept my rifle in my room when I's twelve." Carol didn't point out that he'd had a negligent upbringing. He was right that this was a different world, and that the rules must be different too. Rick sometimes allowed Carl to wear a pistol that was so big on him that the holster reached halfway down his thigh. The boy didn't have it on now, though.

"See anything?" Carol asked her.

"Darlene, Daryl, Rick, Maggie, Glenn, and Zach." Michonne answered. "They're all lined up and armed behind the cars, just waiting for that truck to arrive. I guess Karen and Beth are inside."

[*]

"It's an 18-wheeler," T-Dog said as he joined the line between Daryl and Darlene. "It's having trouble getting up the road. Keeps slipping in the snow."

"Get back up in that watchtower, baby!" Darlene scolded him. "Might be some more trucks somewhere behind that one. Need to warn us if there is. You can shoot from there if you have to."

T-Dog nodded and jogged back to the tower.

Daryl stretched his fingers out, flexed them, and then settled one lightly above the trigger of his crossbow. The adrenaline coursed through his veins. He waited, his breath making gray clouds in the air, the plump snowflakes drifting slowly down and melting into his hair.

The truck's engine ground and whined as it crested the steep hill. When the vehicle came into plain view, the back wheels of the trailer slipped slightly in the freshly fallen snow. The truck righted itself and roared on. There was a loud hiss of brakes as the semi came to a stop several yards from the line of cars. The headlights bathed them in a hazy glow. Daryl raised one hand to shield his eyes. The truck's engine went off, but the headlights stayed on. The window of the passenger's side came down to reveal a white T-shirt waved like a surrendering flag.

"Hold your fire," Rick ordered. "But keep your weapons up."

The passenger's side door opened, and one steel-tipped, snakeskin cowboy boot came down on the running board.

Darlene sighed with relief beside Daryl. "Roscoe!" she hollered happily. "Nice to see you alive."

Rosita climbed out of the driver's side after switching off the headlights. Two doors slammed shut, and soon the pair was jogging up to the line.

"Sasha back yet?" Roscoe asked anxiously over the roof of a car.

"Abraham?" Rosita echoed him just as anxiously.

"Nah," Daryl said. "Yer the first ones back."

Roscoe swept off his cowboy hat and crunched it in his hand while Rosita put two hands atop her green cap, closed her eyes tightly and gritted her teeth. She let out a screech-like growl. "I _told_ him we shouldn't have split up!"

Roscoe punched out his crumpled hat and reshaped the material. "They'll be back," he assured her as he slid the hat on his head.

"You split up?" Rick asked. "What happened?"

"We'll tell you everythin' we can," Roscoe replied as he squeezed through a gap between two cars, "but can we have some food first? We ain't ate in almost two days."


	69. Roscoe and Rosita's Grand Adventure

The group had caravaned successfully together for the first forty miles of the journey. They stopped once to deal with a small group of walkers that was blocking the road, once for lunch, and once to loot a quaint, country gas station.

"Did you get anything out of the pumps?" Rick asked. They'd all come to the kitchen of the big cabin to hear the story, although Andre had been put to bed, Sophia and Carl had been sent to the living room to play Monopoly with Beth, and Zach was on watch.

"It took us almost an hour to figure out how to rig them to get them going," Rosita said, "but once we did, we had enough to fill up all four of our vehicles to full again and top off another pick-up truck we found there. We got the keys off the one walker that was shuffling around the convenience store. And then we filled four of those 25-gallon fuel caddies before the pumps ran dry."

Darlene whistled.

"And did you get lots of food from the store?" Carol asked.

"It was a tiny store," Rosita said, "but it was untouched. There was only one walker shuffling around inside there. We took everything."  
The group had moved on from the gas station and traveled for another fifteen miles before their progress was impeded by a collapsed bridge. They consulted a map and found two possible alternate routes. Both would add a lot of time to their mission. One would lead them to the lumber yard and a nearby Loew's. The other would get them to Solis Georgia and the panels.

They decided to split up to make the supply run go quicker, and they would meet again at the destroyed bridge. Abraham insisted Rosita lead one of the teams, because he trusted her. She, Roscoe, and Bob headed to Solis in the van and the largest pick-up, while Tyreese, Abraham, Sasha, and Morgan went on to the lumber yard with the three other pick-ups.

"We had walkie talkies to stay in touch," Roscoe said, "but we lost contact with Sasha's group."

"Abraham's group," Rosita corrected him. "And we lost contact because Roscoe destroyed the walkie talkie."

"'Cause I had to smack a walker with it!"

"Because you weren't paying attention! Because you didn't have your gun ready."

"Can you not whine about this right now?" Roscoe asked her. "Folks want to know what happened."

Rosita huffed. "Fine. Tell them."

On their way to Solis, Roscoe had stopped to take a leak. That was when he lost the walkie talkie while braining a walker that surprised him from a ditch at the side of the road. It was also when Bob spied a large group of about thirty more walkers ambling their way.

First, they tried finding a way around the herd, but, when that didn't work, they decided to plow through. All this took time, which meant night fell and they had to make camp in the forest, where they could build a fire for warmth and stay off the road. Bob volunteered to take first watch.

"We didn't know he'd pocketed a bunch of booze from the convenience store," Roscoe said.

"Abraham took all the beer in his truck," Rosita explained, "and we didn't see that there was some liquor on the shelf too."

"Bob must of put it all in his backpack when no one was lookin'."

"So he was boozing it up while he was supposed to be keeping watch," Rosita said.

While Bob was drinking, a lone walker made its way into the camp. It set upon Bob, who was too drunk to figure out where he'd set down his rifle, and took a bite out of his upper arm. When the scream awoke Rosita, she knifed the creature. Roscoe dragged the dead walker off into the woods, while Rosita poured the rest of the open bottle of liquor on Bob's wound and then tied a rag around his arm.

"The bite wasn't too bad," Roscoe said, "but we all knew what it meant."

They returned to the campsite and sat down around the embers of the dying fire. Bob changed his torn shirt. Neither Roscoe nor Rosita bothered to rebuke him for the drinking or the foolishness. He'd gotten a death sentence for it, after all. They were silent while Bob slowly sobered up and began to contemplate his fate.

Rosita was just about to ask him when he wanted them to do the awful deed when there was a rustling in the trees.

"Thought it was more walkers," Roscoe said, "but it turned out to be seven of them Terminus folk."

"Shit," Darlene muttered. "But you killed them?"

"Not right away," Rosita answered. "They surprised us and had us outnumbered. Five of them had rifles, and Bob was in no fighting shape. They disarmed us, took us prisoner, and brought us back to their campsite for dinner."

"Meaning we were gonna be dinner," Roscoe said.

The cannibals couldn't see Bob's wound beneath his new shirt, and they hadn't seen the dead walker Roscoe dragged away. No one told them Bob had been bitten. The trio allowed themselves to be marched deeper into the forest to another campsite, where their hands were jerked behind their backs and they were bound with ropes and forced to sit down.

"And then Rosoce here tried to be friendly," Rosita said.

"I was bidin' time. But we learned a thing or two, didn't we?"

"And what did you learn?" Carol asked.

Since the cannibals couldn't get inside the radio station the first time they went, they returned to blow it up. They didn't attempt to clear out the walkers Sasha's team had herded and trapped inside. They simply wired the outside of the building with explosives.

"Hell they get those?" Daryl asked.

"Probably off an abandoned military outpost," Rosita answered.

"They're around. Or maybe they can make them. I can, given the right materials."

"I noticed our warning wasn't playing anymore," Maggie said. "I just thought the backup power source had finally run out."

"Then what happened?" Michonne asked.

Then the cannibals had put up fresh signs to lure people to Terminus again, and they soon had two new victims in one of their cattle cars - a man and a woman. They prepared their butcher's trough and went to claim the man for dinner, but when they opened the door of the car, they found no one inside. The man and the woman had melded themselves to the wall on either side of the door. When the cannibals crept in to investigate, he was disarmed, and the other three were killed.

"At least, that's how they reckon it happened," Roscoe said. "The others heard the gunfire and went running."

The couple had vanished, and as the cannibals searched for them, they were picked off, but every time they thought they knew where the man or the woman was, both had moved and were shooting them from another position. Eventually, the nine remaining survivors gave up the hunt and retreated from Terminus to regroup. They planned a surprise attack in the wee hours of the morning, only to have two of them shot before they could even breach the fence. The remnant decided to leave Terminus to the usurpers and make their way through the world.  
After the cannibals told this story, they bickered over which of their captives to eat first. Bob, who had sobered up a bit more by now, and who was probably feeling guilty for getting them all in this mess, volunteered himself. He argued he'd been eating lots of candy and drinking lots of whiskey that night, so he'd taste "just like a fine whiskey cake."

They started with his lower leg. "Cut it straight off and roasted it," Roscoe said, with a hand to his stomach, looking like he was about to vomit. Carol felt like she wanted to vomit, too, and she was glad the kids were in the other room. "Didn't even kill him first. They wanted to keep him alive to keep 'em fresh."

"I was working on getting free of my ropes while they were eating Bob," Rosita said. "I used a sharp twig from the ground."

"Bob starts laughing hysterically," Roscoe continued. "They ask him what's so damn funny. So he tells 'em. Tells 'em he's been bit, and they're eating infected meat."

Upon hearing this, the cannibals all dropped the meat, stood up, and stuck their fingers down their throats to induce vomiting. They left their guns on the ground, and while they were bent over and retching, Rosita burst free of her ropes, grabbed hold of one of the guns, and opened fire.

"She took out two of 'em before they even had a chance to go for their guns," Roscoe said with a hint of awe. "Took out a third while he was picking his up, and a fourth while he was aimin'."

"And the other three?" Rick asked.

"Roscoe tripped one when he was trying to shoot me," Rosita said. "He fell on his own gun and shot himself. The other two – a couple of women - only had knives, so they fled in the middle of all of it. I had to cut Roscoe loose and put Bob out of his misery. Then we ran after them, but it was too late."

The cannibals had searched them after binding them and had taken everything in their pockets, including their keys. The two women who fled stole their van and pick-up.

"So you lost all that food and gasoline you got at the gas station?" Glenn asked.

Maggie shot him a scolding look. "They almost died! Bob did die!"  
Glenn held up his hands. "It was a question. Not a criticism."

"Half of the gas and food was with Abraham and the others," Rosita said. "They might still have it, if they're alive."

"They're alive," Roscoe insisted.

"What happened next?" Carol asked.

When they found the vehicles stolen, Rosita and Roscoe hiked back to the Terminus campsite and ransacked the packs. None of them had any food, but they had water and ammunition, and Roscoe and Rosita consolidated everything useful into the two largest hiking backpacks.

"We took three bottles of booze," Rosita said. "Vodka, whiskey, and tequila. It was all we had room for. The ammunition and water were our priority."

They took one extra rifle each, in addition to their own, but they couldn't possibly carry them all. The rest they simply unloaded and left in the forest. They'd had some food in their own packs at their campsite, but they'd eaten most of it for dinner, and with the vehicles stolen, all they had left were three protein bars. By now, the sun was rising. They each had a shot of tequila to steel their nerves, skipped breakfast, and began their long hike to Solis, hoping to find a car along the way.

Eventually, they had to stop to nap, taking turns in the bed of an abandoned pick-up that they couldn't manage to wire because of a dead battery. "Got you some smokes out the glove compartment, though," Roscoe told Daryl. He fished in the front pocket of his fleece-lined jean jacket and tossed a pack of Marlboros across the kitchen table. Daryl, who was leaning back against the closed pantry, stepped forward and reached between Carol and Maggie to scoop them up.

"Thanks," he muttered before resuming his former position.

"We made it to Solis eventually," Rosita said. "And we picked that truck up there."

"Rosita can wire cars just like you, Darlene," Roscoe said.

"Hell, sounds like Rosita can do just 'bout everything," Darlene replied.  
Rosita shrugged. "I had a lot of teachers. Brothers. Boyfriends. I picked up a few tricks. Abraham saw I had my shit together. That's why he asked me to join his mission." She glared at Eugene.  
Eugene flitted his eyes away from her gaze and over to Roscoe. "Did you manage to requisition the required equipment for the assembly of our self-sustaining power source?"

"That's what's in the truck," Roscoe said.  
Eugene nodded.

"We made it back to the bridge," Rosita continued. "Where we were supposed to meet up, but it took us so long, we thought maybe they'd got tired of waiting for us and headed back here already. At least, we hoped they had, because when we got back, there was a huge herd of walkers down that road they took."

"I mean huge," Roscoe added. "We had to hightail it out of there."

"Maybe they got trapped behind that herd and had to take a long route around," Rosita said. "If they aren't back in another two days, I'm going back to look for them, whether anyone's coming with me or not."  
Everyone looked at each other around the table, but no one said anything about Rosita's ultimatum.

She whipped off her green cap, set it down next to the empty plate she'd cleared, and rubbed her eyes. "I'm so damn tired."

"Right there with you, sister," Roscoe said.

It was decided Rosita should take Beth's old room, which was supposed to have become Bob's, rather than stay in the bottom cabin alone. They would open that cabin up again when the others returned.  
Roscoe resumed his spot on Daryl and Carol's couch and immediately started snoring. When Carol tucked Sophia in, the girl prayed by name for each of the four people who were still missing.

Carol crawled exhausted into bed, rolled on her good side, and settled her head on Daryl's chest. He let his hand rest on the small of her back. "Sasha's tough as nails," he told her. "Abraham's a soldier. Morgan's a bad ass with that staff. Tyreese..." He apparently couldn't think of anything for Tyreese. "They's gonna be fine."

Carol didn't know if he was reassuring her or himself. She buried herself in the comforting warmth of his embrace and hoped that he was right.


	70. Daddy of a Tween

Carol awoke early in the morning, worry nibbling at the edges of her heart. She watched Daryl sleep, his jaw set firmly, the familiar, masculine lines of his face turned toward her, and she felt a sudden and unexpected surge of desire. She kissed him awake, starting with his ear and trailing to his lips.

"'S wrong?" he murmured, startled.

"Make love to me."

"Yer shoulder. Nurse said – "

"- Please. I want to be reminded that this world doesn't always have to be an ugly place."

He blinked himself more fully awake and stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers. "A'ight."

Daryl was gentle. The foreplay was tantalizingly slow, until Carol was whimpering that she wanted him. He held himself up above her by the strength of his arms and pushed his way inside with a low, satisfied moan. Then he stilled for a moment before he began his, long, deliberate thrusts. He was clearly trying to move as subtly as possible so that he wouldn't jostle her shoulder too much, but in the end, the restraint was too much for either of them. When Carol jerked her hips and cried, "Please," they broke into a desperate rhythm. Her shoulder ached from the movement, but the pain was buried in the shattering wave of pleasure that crashed over her.

Afterwards, she curled up against him, lay her head on his still rising-and-falling chest, and drifted back to sleep.

[*]

While Carol slept in, Daryl took Sophia with him into the woods to lay out some of the acorns they'd collected in the fall as bait for the deer. Only a light smattering of snow remained on the ground. On their way to enter the forest, they passed Roscoe and Eugene setting up a field of solar panels in an open, sunny spot below their cabin.

"Get your end!" Roscoe yelled at Eugene as one of the panels began to slip. Daryl had to leap in and help steady it.

Daryl followed Roscoe's direction to get the panel firmly in place. It took some strength, time, and angling, and he wasn't cold anymore by the time it was done.

"Aren't these supposed to go on the roofs?" Sophia asked.

"Not these ones." Roscoe sighed. "Y'all ain't gonna be able to hit the light switches when we're done. Ain't gonna be able to make it work like that, not with the way these cabins are set up, not with what I found to work with."

"So what _can_ you do with all this?" Sophia asked.

"We _can_ produce power," Roscoe explained, just as if he was talking to an adult. "Distributing it's another matter. Now, we got the parts we need to convert and hook up the electric water pumps and get them running somewhat regular. And we took about thirty zero emissions rechargeable generators from the Solis warehouse. We'll be able to recharge 'em using the solar power we generate. Those things have outlets and you can plug stuff into 'em – space heaters, lamps, fans in the summer, a small refrigerator or freezer. But we can't overuse 'em, or they'll drain right fast, and that's already a lot to keep charged up. The amount of solar power we can generate ain't fully predictable. It gets cloudy, rains, panels get damaged."

"What I believe Roscoe is attempting to convey," Eugene said, "is that our current project will not ensure a return to pre-apocalyptic electrical conditions. Though we will be able to consume a greater quantity of energy than we have heretofore, a certain level of diligent conservation will henceforth remain a practical necessity."

"Think I _conveyed_ that already," Roscoe told him.

"Better than nothin'," Daryl said. "Lot better 'n what we had. Good work, Roscoe. Gettin' all this shit and settin' it up."

Roscoe smiled. "Why I do believe that's the first time you've ever complimented me for anything."

"Well I ain't yer boyfriend." Daryl jerked up the acorn bucket he'd set on the ground. "C'mon, Soph."

Once they'd found the spot where Daryl wanted to bait the deer, he let Sophia lay out the acorns.

"And now what?" she asked.

"Now I put on my ghillie suit 'n sit and sit and wait."

"How long?" she asked.

"However long it takes. An hour. Two. Three."

"In the snow? In the cold?"

"Mhmhm. Don't expect ya to stay. Gonna take ya back."

"Isn't that going to be boring for you?"

"Don't get bored," he said.

"Never? How come?"

He shrugged. "Dunno. Just don't."

"What do you think about when you're lying there?"

"Dunno that I think at all," Daryl told her.

"You're even more zen than Morgan!" She frowned. "I hope Morgan comes back. I hope Sasha comes back. I hope they _all_ come back." Sophia's face changed suddenly into an expression of surprise and embarrassment.

"Somethin' wrong?" he asked.

"I think I really need to go to the bathroom right now!"

"Well, don't talk 'bout it! Just do it. Go on behind that tree, girl." He pointed and turned around.

There was some rustling and eventually she re-emerged and said, "It wasn't that. I think…I think it started."

"What started?" he asked.

"My period. My first one."

"Oh. Uh…" If she'd been bitten by a snake, or gotten cut up in some brush, he'd know just what to do. But this he didn't know a damn thing about. "Let's go find yer mama."

They went back to the cabin, but Carol wasn't there. Sophia looked under the bathroom sink for pads, but only found tampons. "I don't know how to use these," she told Daryl, whose face was red as a beet by now. "I don't want to try!" She sounded down right scared. "I want pads!"

"A'ight," he muttered, now feeling even more panicked himself. He tried to think what to do, but a strategy for locating feminine products was not in the huntsman's guidebook in his mind.

"Don't they keep them in the main pantry?" she asked.

"Yeah." Why the hell hadn't he thought of that? "Take ya down there."

The "pantry" was now in the garage of the big cabin. The goods were organized on storage shelves that filled the entire space. There was an inventory sign-out sheet on a clipboard, which also contained a list of allowed rations. Sophia walked down the shelves to the section marked "toiletries."

"They have tween ones!" she said excitedly.

Daryl didn't know what a "tween one" was, but he wasn't surprised if they had them. T-Dog had boxed up the entire feminine product and condom aisle in the convenience store.

Daryl signed them out on the inventory sheet – "Tween ones – one box." Then he signed out two cans of beer, his entire alcohol ration for the week. He was going to need them _both_ today.

[*]

When Daryl returned to the baited spot in his ghillie suit, the acorns were fortunately still there. He sat behind a barren bush against a tree, where he drank his first beer slowly. He tried not to think about the fact that his little Sophia wasn't quite so little anymore. Carl Grimes was growing, too. It seemed that boy shot up half an inch a month. He was starting to get more hair on his arms. Soon all these teenage hormones were going to be flying all over the place. Two years from now, hell, maybe those two would be making out behind a tree in the woods.

Daryl did not like the thought of that. _At all._

He wanted more beer.

The silver of the Budweiser can didn't exactly blend well with the camouflage, but he finished his second can quickly and buried both beneath some brush. He hadn't eaten much breakfast, and he felt a bit buzzed. He dozed off to sleep against the tree.

The snap of a twig awoke him. His first instinct was a walker, and he seized the bow that had drooped to his lap, but it was only a deer, feasting on the bait. It heard him startle awake and raised its head. Its ears perked up. Daryl shot through the half-barren bush, straight into the deer's neck. It tried to bolt, but faltered and fell.

[*]

Carol sat before the roaring fireplace in the big cabin and poked the needle through T-Dog's canvass pants. The knee needed patching, and there was nothing in T-Dog's size in these cabins, so he couldn't just grab a new pair. She pulled the thread all the way through. Sophia had found her eventually, and they'd had a talk about her big milestone. Now the girl was helping Karen and Beth to prepare dinner in the kitchen.

"Should you be doing that?" Michonne asked as she sat down in the arm chair. Andre was on the floor playing with Lincoln logs.

"I think I can manage to _sew_. I've got to do _something_."

Glenn came in the front door, beat his boots against the mat, and then eased down in the other armchair. "Daryl got a deer. He's skinning and salting it now. Says we should smoke it a couple of weeks for full flavor and have it for Christmas dinner. "

"I'll make us an apple pie for Christmas, too," Carol said. "We've got all that filling still, and the flour. I think I can use the pizza oven. And I'll use that big can of potatoes and some powdered milk and garlic powder to make mashed potatoes."

"Are we going to decorate a tree?" Michonne asked. "The kids would love it. I think we should, for this cabin at least."

"And Roscoe can lead us in Christmas carols," Carol said.

"You know, maybe not everyone here is a Christian," Glenn cautioned them.

"Well, I'm an atheist," Michonne told him, "but I'm still going to celebrate Christmas. Especially if it means extra rations of chocolate in my stocking."

"I'll stuff your stocking," said Rick as he emerged from the kitchen. Michonne chuckled, and he bent down and kissed her.

"Uh…." Glenn grinned. "So you two…." He pointed a finger from one to the other. "When did _that_ happen?"

"When she wasn't looking," Rick said.

"Yeah," Michonne agreed. "He kind of snuck up on me."

"Speaking of romance," Glenn said. "After dinner tonight, Maggie and I are getting married."

And they did. The couple exchanged rings and simple vows before the fireplace after dinner that evening, with T-Dog officiating. He was an ordained minister, though he'd never made full-time work of it in the old world.

That night, when they were settled in bed, Daryl asked, "Ya wanna to do that? What Maggie and Glenn did?"

"Do you?" she asked.

"Don't care. Just...don't want ya to think I'm half-assin' this."

She laughed. "You had to deal with our daughter starting her period today. Alone. And you did a great job. I don't think you're half-assing anything at all." She rolled over and kissed him. "I don't need a ceremony. We told Sophia we're married, and so we are. Ed said all those vows in church, and they didn't mean a damn thing. I know what you mean from your actions."

Daryl pressed his forehead to hers. They didn't risk sex again tonight, but they lost themselves down a maze of kisses.

[*]

When another day passed and the supply team did not return, Rosita announced over dinner that she was leaving early the next morning to search for them. Daryl volunteered to go with her, but Carol said, "We need you here to hunt."

"Got a rabbit and a deer in the smokehouse," Daryl replied. "Got plenty of canned food. Only be gone a couple days."

" _If_ you come back," Maggie said. "But if you don't, there goes our hunter. I don't think you should go."

"I can't go," Darlene said. "I'm the only medical person now."

"So what are we trying decide here?" Rosita asked. "Who's most expendable?"

"I'll go," Zach said. "I'm used to these runs by now."

"No one's going," came T-Dog's voice from the foyer. They hadn't heard him open the door and step inside. "Look who I saw from the watchtower."

He stepped back and Sasha walked in.

"Brown sugar!" Roscoe exclaimed. He ran around the couch to the foyer and embraced Sasha with a "Whooo-whee!" He lifted her up slightly, set her back on her feet, and said, "Good to see you alive, girl."

"Good to see you alive, too, Roscoe," Sasha told him, but she wasn't smiling like he was.

Morgan walked inside the cabin and leaned back against the wall. His hand curved around his staff, which was stained almost black with blood.

"Good to see you alive, brother," Rick told him, and Morgan nodded.

Then Abraham stepped in beside Sasha. His frame loomed in the doorway. A gasp of relief came out of Rosita, and she hurried over to hug him, but he was stiff in her arms. He stepped away from her touch.

Carol watched this and wondered if it was just Abraham's personality to be stand-offish in public, or if something deeper was wrong. "Where's Tyreese?" she asked.

Sasha swallowed and looked down at the floor of the cabin.

A gasping-sob erupted from Karen, and Beth put an arm around her.

"He didn't make it back with us," Abraham said solemnly. "But some other people did. Some refugees we picked up. They're waiting outside to hear if you'll take them into the community, and on what terms."

"How many?" Daryl asked.

Sasha glanced at Abraham. Their eyes locked. She looked back at the group. "Nine."

Darlene whistled.

Carol glanced toward the side of the cabin where the garage was attached, and thought about how much food was in the pantry.

"Nine," Rick repeated in disbelief. "How did you find them? How did you get them all here?"

"It's long story," Sasha said. "Maybe we all better sit down."


	71. Interviewing the Refugees

While Abraham and Morgan waited outside with the refugees, Sasha told the assembled camp what had happened. The group of four made its way to Lowe's first, where nearly all the batteries had been cleared out, as had the oil and propane tanks. But the group managed to gather a lot of vegetable seeds, fertilizer, insecticide, and plant food from the garden section. No one was thinking of growing their own food in the beginning.

They got nails, wood, tools, and other materials for building the fence. They grabbed a few extra space heaters, hoping Roscoe and Eugene would find a way to produce power. In the auto section, where they slew two walkers, they gathered some car parts, antifreeze, and a 12-volt portable power station with jumper cables. Then, busting windows when necessary, they searched the abandoned vehicles in the parking lot. The group gathered engine oil, cigarettes, the occasional snack, one handgun, two rifles, and four boxes of ammunition. "And we got a lot of prescription pills," Sasha told Darlene.

By the time they were done, they had completely filled all three beds of the pick-ups and all of the backseats. But still they moved onto the lumber yard. There they killed some walkers and secured a running, 30-foot, flatbed truck. "The keys were in one of the walker's pockets," Sasha explained.

By then, night had fallen, and they camped in the lumber yard. The group tried to contact Roscoe, Rosita, and Bob but heard nothing but static over the walkie talkie. In the morning, they loaded the truck with additional lumber, and then they moved on to find the silo Eugene had suggested. "It was infested with mice. It was crawling with them like something out of a horror movie."

"That is a grave disappointment indeed," said Eugene, his facial expression mirroring the tone of his words. Daryl suddenly realized who Eugene reminded him of - Droopy Dog, from those old Saturday morning cartoons he used to watch.

"But," Sasha said, "we managed to get two untouched burlap bags of sorghum seed out of the back of a locked pick-up parked outside."

"That is quite fortuitous."

Hoping the others would be there, the group made their way back to the rendezvous point at the bridge, but their path was blocked by a massive herd of walkers. The caravan made a U-turn in the road and outpaced the herd. Soon it was again time to make camp for the night.

The next morning, they moved on, going a long way out of their way to avoid the herd. They had to camp overnight yet again. "This time we found an apartment complex. There was a family living there. Two sisters, their father, and a little girl. Their father had been a driver of food trucks, so they'd been living off of one of those. We stayed there for the night. They were running out of food, so we agreed to bring all four of them with us the next morning. Unfortunately, we got set on by walkers on the way back to our trucks, and the old man died. He wasn't in the best health to begin with."

"How old's the girl?" Sophia asked.

"About seven," Sasha told her. "Her name's Meghan."

Sophia looked vaguely disappointed. She'd clearly been hoping for a girl her own age, a playmate, maybe even a sister of sorts.

"Then what happened?" Glenn asked.

"As we were trying to find a clear route back home, we stumbled on Woodbury."

Karen hugged herself. "You didn't try to go inside, did you? I swear that Governor was insane …" She shook her head.

"The town was on fire and overrun with walkers," Sasha answered. "People were screaming from inside and trying to fight them off. Several of us jumped in to try to save them. That's how we lost Tyreese." Her voice cracked. Roscoe walked behind the chair where she was sitting and put a hand gently on her shoulder. "He's always been more of a lover than a fighter," Sasha said, "but he died fighting."

Karen blinked and wiped a hand across her eyes.

Sasha gritted her jaw. Roscoe squeezed her shoulder gently. She put her hand over Roscoe's and subtly moved it away. He took the hint and walked away from her chair to lean back against the cabin wall. "I had a hard time losing my brother. But Abraham helped me through it. He reminded me that Tyreese's death was not in vain. My brother didn't just die fighting. He died loving, too. He died saving others."

According to the survivors of Woodbury, the people of the town had begun to question the Governor's authority. They feared his growing insanity. With the support of some of the townspeople, one of the members of the small Woodbury army, Cesar Martinez, planned a coup, but two of the soldiers remained faithful to the Governor. They warned the Governor of Martinez's plan to assassinate him, and the Governor confronted Martinez in the streets of Woodbury, where he shot the soldier in the head.

"I knew Martinez," Karen said. "He tried to recruit me for Woodbury's army."

"The way the survivors tell it," Sasha said, "a gunfight erupted in the streets between the Governor, his supporters, and Martinez's supporters." Unwilling to see control slip from his grasp, the Governor slipped away from the fray, and then he himself set the town on fire. At least that's what the survivors suspected.

By now walkers had been drawn by the sounds of the gunshots and were pressing on the gates in a herd. Apparently preferring to die rather than lose control of his town, the mad Governor began to roll open the gates to let them in. A watchman on the wall shot him in the head with an arrow from her bow to prevent him, but it was too late. He'd gotten the gate open a few feet. The walkers poured in. Some began consuming the Governor. Others flooded deeper into the town. The archer shot them from her platform, but soon ran out of arrows.

"That was about the time we arrived," Sasha said. "We'd heard all the screaming. We jumped in to help." In the end, most of the town had perished in either fire, gunfire, or in the consuming jaws of the walkers. "But we managed to save six people and get them out alive."

"Did you salvage anything from Woodbury?" Rick asked.

"We couldn't. But from outside the gates, we managed to grab two Army trucks mounted with machine guns."

"Hell yeah," Daryl said.

"They were also stocked with two boxes of MREs each. Four dozen meals." Sasha looked around the room full of people and then directly at Roscoe. "Where's Bob?"

Roscoe told her everything. Sasha shook her head slowly.

"Hey," Roscoe said softly, "The bad news is we've lost people. But the good news is that both Terminus and Woodbury are destroyed. Maybe we ain't got many threats left out there."

"Always gonna be threats," Daryl replied. "Long as there's people."

"That's right," Rick agreed. "Better build that fence."

"Abe will see to that," Sasha assured him.

Rosita raised an eyebrow. " _Abe_?"

Sasha looked away from her. "We should probably have a Council meeting and interview the refugees. Find out what skills they have. Decide where to house them and what jobs to give them."

"We can do that," Rick said.

"It's time for you to step down now that Sasha's back," Carol reminded him.

Rick looked slightly annoyed at the suggestion, but he nodded. "Yeah, I suppose it is. But I'm happy to fill in whenever a Council member is absent from the camp. I'll be a permanent alternate."

"The Council will discuss it," Carol said.

"And we should probably have elections again sometime," Rick suggested. "Four-month terms, maybe?"

"The Council will discuss it," Carol said again. Daryl couldn't help but smile slightly at the way she was asserting herself and the authority of the Council. She'd come a long way, his woman, from that trembling flower in the quarry camp.

"Well," Maggie said, "Let's get this interview process started."

[*]

All non-Council members were dismissed from the big cabin except Karen. She looked at Sasha who was sitting in the arm chair and said, "I left that place. I'd been on the road for a while when you and Roscoe found me. People filtered into that town over time. I may not know them all, but I'll help where I can."

Maggie rocked in the old-fashioned rocking to the left of the coffee table. "I guess you were right about Woodbury."

"I'm just glad I wasn't there when it finally fell apart." Karen blinked her eyes and gritted her jaw. "I'm sorry Tyreese was."

Daryl shifted uncomfortably on his feet by the fireplace. Darlene and Carol, who were sitting on either side of Karen on the couch, each put a comforting hand on her shoulders.

"I'll call in the first two refugees," Maggie said quietly as she rose from the rocking chair.

Lilly Chambler and her daughter Meghan entered the room cautiously and introduced themselves.

"How many walkers have you killed?" Daryl asked.

"Me?" Lilly shook her head. "None. But my sister's killed several. She'd go out and clear around the apartment complex while I nursed our father and took care of my little girl." She put a hand on Meghan's shoulder. The little girl had freckles like Sophia, but she was five or six years younger, and blonde. When Meghan noticed Daryl studying her, she hid her face against her mother's side. He'd almost forgotten how scary he was to people who didn't know him.

"We lived off of the food in my father's delivery truck," Lilly continued. "We were running out and talking about stretching our rations to 600 calories a day. My sister was thinking of making dangerous supply runs by herself. We're so glad you found us, Sasha."

Sasha nodded solemnly. They interviewed her further and learned that she had been a licensed practical nurse in the old world.

"Good," Darlene said when Lilly was gone. "She can help lighten my load."

"And the little girl can help in the kitchen with Sophia and Carl," Carol suggested.

Tara Chambler came in next, acting with an exaggerated self-confidence.

"You've killed walkers?" Daryl asked.

She nodded cockily. "Hell yeah. I've brought down my share. Kept the apartment clear for months."

"What did you do in the old world?" Carol asked.

"I was a cop."

Daryl had run into his fair share of cops, mostly because of Merle. Tara didn't look like an experienced cop to him. "How long ya been a cop?"

At this, Tara seemed to lose some her swagger. She shrugged. "Well, I was _born_ a cop. But, I mean, I was just about to finish the academy when this all started."

"Mhmhm."

"We should probably assign her a regular watch," Darlene said. She returned her attention to Tara. "We have a watchtower. Maybe you noticed it."

"You should have a foot patrol, too," Tara said, "around the perimeter, 24/7, until you get that fence built. Extra security."

The Council agreed with the suggestion and assigned her to a regular foot patrol as well as a watch shift.

A thirty-something man entered next, probably Indian, if Daryl had to guess. _Dot not feather,_ Merle would have said. "Karen!" he exclaimed with surprise.

"This is Doctor Caleb Subramanian," Karen told them. "He was Woodbury's general practitioner." She hugged the doctor in greeting and told him why she had fled Woodbury.

"You were right to do so," the doctor said. "I saw the hints of the Governor's insanity, but I couldn't leave my patients."

"This is fantastic," Darlene said. "We got two medical people now! I can concentrate on other stuff."

"When ya ain't assitin' Dr. S," Daryl said.

"Doctor Subramanian," the man corrected him.

"He ain't gonna be able to say that," Darlene teased.

The Council asked Dr. S about his experience and then dismissed him. Karen confirmed that he was a good doctor, with an excellent bedside manner, and said she had no reason to distrust the man.

The next refugee was unknown to Karen. Patrick was a fourteen-year-old boy with thick, untamed, dark hair and a quiet but friendly manner. He told them that the superflu had killed his entire family. A Mormon neighbor brought him to the LDS temple in Sandy Springs, where he lived with about thirty Mormons.

"They're supposed to have at least three months of food and water supplies at all times," Patrick said. "So the ones who survived the Outbreak, they all brought their food supplies to the temple. The temple had an iron fence around it already, so they just shut the gate. By November, we started to run out of food and water. There was some kind of backup of sewage that started spilling out of the toilets. Sickness broke out. Ten people died, almost all at once. Others were bitten. Six of us survived and fled. We kept driving and lived in the temple's van. We saw signs for this place called Terminus, but then we heard the warning on our van's radio, so we didn't go. A week later, we found Woodbury." He grimaced. "But now I'm the only one left."

"How many walkers have you killed?" Carol asked.

"None myself, ma'am. We mostly just avoided them. The bishop ran one over once."

"What did you do in the old world?" Sasha asked. "Did you do anything besides go to high school?"

"I was in the chess club, ma'am."

Daryl shook his head.

"And I worked fast food one summer. I cooked the fries. I'll do anything," Patrick assured them. "I'm a hard worker. I'll scrub toilets. I don't care."

Patrick was given garbage duty, which he accepted humbly. He departed the Council with profuse thanks for taking him in.

"Sweet boy," Darlene said. She shot a teasing smile at Daryl. "Bet you a pack of condoms he's gonna be Sophia's next crush."

Daryl glowered at her. "Bet ya need those condoms more than I do."

Darlene snorted, Sasha grinned, and Maggie smiled, but Carol turned her cool gaze on him, and Daryl wished he could take it back. He'd only meant to retaliate against Darlene, not to issue some kind of complaint about his own sex life. It had slowed down, but that was because Carol had that shoulder wound. He looked straight down at his boots and felt the heat spread across his cheeks. "Better call in the next one," he muttered.

"Why don't we take five first," Carol suggested. "Have a bathroom and water break."

"I second that motion," Maggie said. Daryl could hear the scattering of feet toward the kitchen and bathrooms, and suddenly it was just him and Carol in the living room.

She got up from the couch and came over to the mantle until she was just a few inches away. "Do you have something you want to say to me directly?" she asked.

His eyes darted around the wood floor. "Nah. Ain't got no complaints."

"Really?" she asked. "Because it sounds like you do."

"Wasn't directed at you, I swear!" He finally ventured to look up.

Damn if she wasn't smirking.

Her eyes were all twinkling with amusement, the way they did every time she teased him.

His muscles unrolled and then tightened again. "Think that's funny, huh? Makin' me think yer pissed off?"

She gave him a fake pout of sympathy, and then leaned in and kissed his lips. "Come on. It's a little bit funny."

"Ain't any bit funny."

She put a hand on the back of his neck. "But you're so cute when you're worried. It kind of turns me on. Kind of makes me want to go through a whole pack of condoms."

"Yeah?" he asked, licking his lips and taking a step closer, but then footsteps came down the hall and he stepped back from her. Carol's hand slipped out of his hair.

Maggie settled into the armchair. "I don't know why I have to pee all the time lately."

[*]

The next refugee to come before the Council removed his straw hat and introduced himself as Mateo. He had thick, graying black hair and a neatly trimmed goatee. Light crow's feet crinkled at the corner of his eyes, which made him look like he was laughing. He and Karen knew each other and exchanged pleasantries.

"Mateo was one of the first people I met in Woodbury," Karen said. "He was in charge of all of the agriculture."

"So you can garden?" Maggie asked.

"He can order people around a garden, anyway," Karen said.

"Careful," Mateo insisted. "You will give them a bad impression of me. Vouch for me, please." He smiled.

"I have nothing against Mateo," Karen assured them. "He's a good man. Although you were always a little too fond of the violent entertainments the Governor used to host." She shook her head. "I never understood the town's interest in those."

"Clearly they were nothing but bread and circuses," Mateo replied. "But what can I say? I grew up watching bull fighting." He looked around the Council. "Take me in, and I can help you. I have a master's degree in Agricultural Management." He motioned toward the door with his straw hat. "Abraham out there said you have sorghum and lots of vegetable seeds. You cannot plant the sorghum until May, but you should begin preparing the land now. There is much clearing and prepping to be done. This cabin and the next one down are about 250 acres apart, and in the semi-grassy space between you shall find your best soil for this area. You can clear the few trees there, rip out the brush, overturn the earth, and convert it to farmland to sow the sorghum and other vegetables."

"It's good to have another farmer here," Maggie said. "I grew up on a farm. I can help you with all that."

"I am not a farmer exactly," Mateo replied. "I am more of a _management_ type. I can plan it…I can envision it."

"Well, you're going to get your hands dirty, too," Maggie told him. "This isn't Woodbury. Everyone does real labor here."

He nodded. "Yes. Of course. I understand." He looked around and his eyes settled on Daryl. "Are you the hunter?"

"Mhmhm."

"Can you trap?" Mateo asked.

"Sure. Hunt with traps sometimes."

"I mean, can you trap without injuring the animal?" he asked.

"Don't matter. We's gonna eat 'em anyhow."

"If you capture some possum and rabbits alive, _uninjured_ , we can breed them. _Farm_ them. They will be less likely to have worms and diseases that way."

Daryl nodded. He felt stupid for not having thought of that sooner. Why hadn't he? Hell, his neighbor two cabins up had bred possum in cages when he was a kid. "Got to feed 'em though, if we's gonna farm 'em."

"Mice for the possum," Mateo said. "We do not want to eat mice anyway."

"We have traps in the pantry," Carol told him. "To keep mice out. We catch five or six a week at least. We've just been killing them."

"Good. The rabbits we can feed grasses and forest vegetation," Mateo said. "We must not waste our own vegetables on them. If you can manage to catch a buck and two does, that will yield 180 pounds of rabbit meat a year."

The next refugee was a forty-something, blue-eyed, auburn-haired man named Greg who had been a mechanic before the Outbreak. He'd lived in Woodbury since the beginning and had never killed any walkers. Karen knew him and had nothing ill to say of him, and he was given the primary job of maintaining their fleet of vehicles.

A young, brown-haired woman in her early 20s named Halley came before the council next. She hugged Karen in greeting and Karen told them that she was one of the guards at Woodbury.

"So you can shoot guns well?" Darlene asked.

"I'm an archer, actually," she replied.

"Ya hunt?" Daryl asked.

"I've never hunted. I was a competitive shooter."

"Kind of bow?" Daryl asked.

"Compound. Forty-five pound draw. I was training for the Olympics before all this started."

"How many walkers you killed with that bow?" Daryl asked.

"I don't know. A couple dozen, maybe. I've been in Woodbury since near the start, but I sometimes shot them over the wall. For practice."

They assigned her to hunt birds with Sasha and Darlene. "If you can compete in the Olympics," Darlene told her, "you can probably manage to hit a bird." They also assigned her to a foot patrol, since she'd killed walkers.

When she was gone, Darlene said, "She's cute. And young. And a competitive shooter like Zach. Beth better watch out."

"Zach gave Beth a promise ring," Maggie said. "They're sharing a room."

"Sometimes you love the one you're with," observed Sasha quietly. "Especially when you think they're the only one left in the world. But then your world grows."

 _What the hell did that mean?_ Daryl wondered. He glanced at Carol, who seemed lost in thought. He wondered if she would have loved him in another world. He wondered if she thought Dr. S was a good-looking man, or Mateo, or Greg.

"I'm pretty sure Zach's the more invested one in that relationship," Maggie said.

Daryl slung an arm across the mantle. "Can y'all ladies quit yer gossipin' and call in the next refugee?"

Another teenage boy entered next, maybe about sixteen or seventeen, and took off his ski cap. He ran a hand over his short brown hair. His blue eyes were naturally wide, and it made him look a little stunned and stupid. "I'm Jody," he said.

"'S a girl's name," Daryl said.

"It's unisex," Jody told him.

"Hmmm."

Karen had seen him around Woodbury but didn't know him well. The Council interviewed him for a while and learned that he was from Seattle, but his family had been at his aunt's funeral in Savannah when it all started. They'd tried fleeing north. He lost his mom and sister on the way, and he and his father eventually took refuge in Woodbury, though his father had died in the fire. When asked what skills he had, his mouth dropped open slightly and he looked up, as if racking his brain for anything.

"What hobbies did you have in the old world?" Carol asked him.

"Uh…skateboarding. And parkour."

"Hell's park core?" Daryl asked.

"Like…obstacle courses. You have to run and jump and climb and get from one point to another as fast as possible."

"Any good at it?" Darlene asked.

"Real good. These producers of a new reality TV show were even talking to me about competing in a parkour contest show thing. But, nothing ever came of it because…you know. The world ended."

"Supply runner," Carol suggested.

Sasha nodded. "Have you done much scavenging?"

"Not since we found Woodbury. But in the beginning, yeah, I was the one who'd go into tight spots to get things for my family."

"Well, we aren't going on any more runs in a while," Maggie said, "so, until then…have you ever built anything before?"

He twisted his hat in his hands. "Built ramps for skateboarding on. Obstacle courses."

The Council told him he could help with the fence.

After he left, the Council dismissed Karen and conferred. When Rick's question of term limits was raised, Daryl asked, "Ain't this somethin' the whole group should vote on?"

"We need some kind of written constitution," Maggie suggested, "that everyone signs. So we aren't just winging the governing structure like this."

"Let's get this fence built first," Daryl said. "See how these new folk settle in. Then have a camp-wide meetin'. Figure all that out."

"Well, right now," Carol said, "We have to figure out how long this perimeter fence is going to be and where everyone will be living."

Maggie grabbed a pen and a spiral notebook, and the Council moved to the kitchen, where they settled around the table in the breakfast nook to tackle the detailed work.


	72. Heartbreaks

Darlene joined the Council table a little later than the others. "I was talkin' to Michonne outside," she explained. "She and Rick want to shack up and let their kids share a room. So let's work that in while we're rearranging."

Maggie pressed the point of her pen to the notebook. "All right. Let's see where we can double up. We've got me and Glenn together, Darlene and T-Dog, Rosita and Abraham - "

"- I wouldn't count on that," Sasha interrupted from across the kitchen table.

Maggie looked up from the notebook. "They're _already_ sharing a room."

"But they won't be anymore. Starting today."

Daryl didn't know what was going on, but his instincts told him Sasha's statement spelled trouble.

"Why not?" Maggie asked.

"Let me guess." Darlene looked straight at Sasha. "You and Abraham hooked up on that supply run, and now Rosita's about to get the boot. The poor woman just don't know it yet."

"Abraham's telling her now," Sasha admitted. "Look, I didn't mean for it to happen. We just connected. We shared that truck for several days, and he was there for me when my brother died, and - "

"- No one's judging you," Carol said, "but we need to make practical arrangements here. And I'm sure we all hope this doesn't cause conflict in the camp."

"We're all adults here," Sasha said. "It's not as if Rosita and I are going to get in a catfight."

"I wouldn't be so sure of that," Darlene said. "If it was _my_ man you'd fucked, I'd be kicking your ass six ways to Sunday right about now."

"We didn't _fuck._ That's not what this is about."

"Poor Roscoe," Darlene said. "He's been sweet on you since the day y'all got here."

"Poor Rosita, more like," Maggie said. "She's been with Abraham through thick and thin. She was getting ready to go out into all that again to search for him."

"Let's just get these damn rooms assigned," Daryl muttered.

"Here's my proposal." Maggie sketched a map of the camp and pushed it to the center of the table. A line marked where the rear fence would be. Then a rectangle was labeled _Vehicle Lot 1_. After that was the square designating _Cabin 1_ , beside which was written:

 _Master – Daryl & Carol  
2nd bedroom – Sophia_

Below Cabin 1, Maggie had sketched the park and labeled the watchtower, greenhouse, smokehouse, root cellar, and small garden plot. A little ways down from that, she'd drawn a square marked Cabin 2 and written:

 _Master – Zach and Beth  
2nd bedroom – Michonne and Rick  
3rd bedroom - Carl and Andre  
4th bedroom – Morgan  
Study – Council Chambers / Community Library  
Garage – Communal Pantry_

"Me and Glenn moving out of the big cabin will give my little sister some room to spread her wings," Maggie said. "And then we can have the study free for private meetings."

A rectangle between Cabin 2 and Cabin 3 was labeled _Future Farm Fields._ Beside the box for Cabin 3 was listed:

 _Master – Halley and Karen_  
 _2nd bedroom - Rosita  
3rd bedroom – Roscoe  
Garage - Storage_

"Lucky Roscoe," Sasha said. "He finally gets his own room. And that cabin has the piano."

"It also has _three_ pretty, single women." Darlene looked at Sasha pointedly. "Maybe that'll ease the poor man's disappointment."

Beside Cabin 4, Maggie had written:

 _Master – Sasha  
2nd bedroom – Patrick  
Couch – Abraham_

"Well now that's convenient," said Darlene. "And then when Sasha and Abraham are ready to shack up, he can easily move into her big ole bedroom."

Sasha glared at her. "I told you – I didn't _plan_ for it to happen. But we clicked in a way I've never clicked with anyone. In a way he never has either. People break up. They move on. How many men have _you_ been through in your life?"

"Lots. But not a damn one I knew belonged to another woman at the time."

Daryl, irritated by this feminine bickering, asked, "So who's in Cabin 5?"

Maggie read the names off:

 _Master – Lilly and Meghan  
2nd bedroom – Tara  
Study / 3rd bedroom – Dr. S  
Garage - Clinic & Pharmacy_

"I figure it's a good idea to store and organize all of the medicines and medical equipment in one place," Maggie said. "Especially now that we have more. Maybe Roscoe and Eugene can get that wine refrigerator going with their solar power, for temperature controlled storage of the medicines when it gets too hot or too cold."

Under the next box was written:

 _Cabin 6:_

 _Master – Glenn and Maggie  
2nd bedroom – Mateo  
3rd bedroom – Eugene  
Garage –Reloading Room_

"Reloading room?" Sasha asked.

"I think she means instead of using the shed by the range," Carol said.

Maggie nodded. "The range is going to be beyond the perimeter fence now. And with Eugene in that cabin, he and I can do the reloading work."

Just above the line marking the bottom of the perimeter fence was _Vehicle Lot 2_ , and above that was _Cabin 7_ , which read:

 _Master - T-Dog and Darlene_  
 _2nd bedroom - Greg_  
 _3rd bedroom - Jody_

"I figured it was a good idea to spread out our best fighters," Maggie said. "Daryl at the exit and Darlene at the entrance of the camp. At least one good fighter in every cabin. Except maybe Cabin 5."

"We know Tara's at least killed a lot of walkers," Carol said. "And if she's not as strong as we hope, that cabin is between yours and Sasha's. Good planning, Maggie."

"What if we end up with more refugees one day?" Darlene asked. "Shouldn't we build the fence further down? Close in more cabins?"

"The _goal_ was to keep the camp and perimeter fence a manageable size," Sasha said. "And Cabin 7 is around a bend, which gives us more of an element of surprise if anyone comes up that hill than if we were to put the entrance in plainer view."

"If we do take in more people," suggested Carol, "we can double up some of the single bedrooms. And we still have a couch in all seven living rooms. There are also some empty garages that we can convert to bedrooms."

"Sides," Daryl said. "Cabin eight was a real shit show. Had to kill four walkers. Damn ugly ones, too. Never did clean up the blood. Stank like Merle's ass in there." He felt suddenly awful and didn't quite know why. Carol's hand covered his on the table, and she squeezed, and that was when he realized that he was sad about Merle, sad about having to do the right thing, even though it had been the right thing to do.

Carol understood. How the hell she could manage to read him like that, he didn't know, but she did. "I bet Merle's having his own glorious adventure in Kentucky," she said softly. "He's probably in charge of all of Lexington by now."

"Yeah," Daryl agreed with a bittersweet smile. "Probably opened a casino and a brothel."

"Madam Merle." Carol squeezed his hand and let go, as if she knew that now he needed to move on from the subject. "We can't fit everyone at once in this cabin's kitchen anymore," she announced. "Why don't we divide dinner into two shifts?"

The Council agreed and assigned everyone to a dinner shift. Then it called in all the refugees together and explained to them the rationing system, the expectations of the camp, and their living assignments. A camp-wide meeting was scheduled to draw up a Constitution and vote on term limits after Christmas, by which time they hoped the fence would be built and the refugees would be fairly well settled in.

[*]

Carol finished settling Sophia into bed, and when she came out into the living room, Daryl was sitting on the floor before the fire and cleaning her AR-15 on the coffee table. Roscoe was grabbing one of his guitars from the corner of the room. "Forgot this one," he said. This was the third trip Roscoe had made back up to their cabin this evening to grab something he'd supposedly forgotten.

"Are you trying to avoid going home, Roscoe?" she asked. "Do you not like your new housemates?"

"Ain't that," he said, plopping down on the couch and laying the guitar across his lap. "It's just...there's three cryin' women in there. Well, I reckon Rosita don't ever cry. She's sulkin' and simmerin', like a sad, angry lobster in a boiling pot. Karen's wailing over Tyreese's death, and Haley's sniffling over the friends she lost in Woodbury."

"I'll make you some tea."

Carol brought all three of them cups. Daryl murmured thanks, pushed the cup out of his way, and went back to work on the gun while the tea cooled. Roscoe rested his on his knee while Carol settled onto the far side of the couch from him.

"Gonna miss y'all," he said.

"I'm sure you'll see us around," Carol told him. "It's a small town."

"Who the hell names a kid _Abraham_ in this day and age?" Roscoe asked.

"I...don't know," said Carol, unsure how to respond to the outburst.

"What do you suppose Sasha sees in that man?"

"I don't know," Carol repeated. "She got to know him better on the road. I'm sure she knows him better than any of us does."

"Seems like a stupid jarhead type to me."

"Abraham ain't a dumb ass," Daryl said. "Plannin' that fence well."

Roscoe sipped his tea and muttered, "Walks around with his chest puffed out all the damn time."

"'Them's just muscles," Daryl told him.

"And he's got no sense of loyalty!" Roscoe set his cup down on the end table with a clunk. "I told Sasha to watch her back. If he can leave Rosita just like that..." Roscoe snapped his fingers. "Ain't no reason he won't do the same thing to her. And if Sasha thinks I'm gonna be there to pick up all the pieces when he does, well, then...that girl's got another think coming!"

"Ya just ain't her type, Roscoe." Daryl looked up from the AR-15 as he snapped a piece back into place. "Ain't yer fault, man. Ain't hers, neither. So quit whining like a little girl."

"So if Carol just decided to leave you for Greg tomorrow, you'd be fine with that?" Roscoe asked.

Daryl slowed down in his reassembly of the gun. He seemed to consider the question uneasily. "Sasha didn't _leave_ you," he said finally. "Y'all weren't together."

"Fair enough," Roscoe admitted. "You're right. I shouldn't be up here talkin' to y'all 'bout Sasha when I could be down there with three pretty women crying on my shoulders." He stood with his guitar in hand. "Thanks for the tea, Carol. It was delicious, as is everything you make." He tipped his hat to her before leaving the cabin.

"Poor Roscoe," she said when the front door was closed.

"Greg," Daryl muttered. "Hell he think ya'd like _Greg_ for?"

Carol chuckled. "Well, mechanics do know how to get an engine running."

" _Stop_."

"You know who else is handy under the hood?"

"Don't."

"Who do you think I'm going to say?" she asked.

"Dunno. Just don't want ya to say it." He finished with the rifle, laid it on the table, and wiped the gun oil from his hands with a clean cloth.

"I was going to say _you._ And I was going to ask you to give me a thorough inspection." She picked up her tea. "Since you feel so shortchanged in the condom usage department."

"I weren't complainin'! Swear. Just tryin' to wipe that smirk off Darlene's face."

Carol sipped and set her tea down.

"Wait." He put the cloth on the table. "Ya serious? 'Bout..." His lip twitched as if the hopeful smile wanted to break away from the uncertain, stern line of his mouth. "Wantin' an inspection?"

"Depends. Do you know where the ignition is?"

Daryl stood and held his hand out to her. "Bet your britches I do. Know where the starter and the spark plugs are too."

Delighted to see him return the teasing banter for once, she laughed, slid her hand into his, and let him help her up. He put out the fire first, and then they walked into the bedroom to start another one.

[*]

Dr. S finished the last stich in Carol's shoulder and handed Lilly the needle, which she took to the counter and sanitized in alcohol. "There," Dr. S said. "That will hold up better than the original stitching. It looked like the kind of hasty work that would be done in a war zone."

"Well," Carol told him, "Bob _was_ an Army medic. He saved my life."

"Sorry. I'm a bit of a perfectionist. And you _did_ pop a stitch. You must have been doing something too vigorous last night." Carol suppressed a smile. She hadn't even _noticed_ she'd popped a stitch until the morning, when she woke up with her shoulder aching more than usual. "Would you like a painkiller?"

The doctor and Lilly had spent the better part of yesterday evening setting up the clinic in the garage of their cabin. All of the medicines were categorized and locked in a storage cabinet, and Dr. S had talked of growing penicillin at dinner last night.

"No. It's not so bad," Carol said. "I don't want to start using those. Maybe an aspirin, though?"

Dr. S turned to his nurse. "Lilly, three ibuprofen."

Lilly brought them to Carol and she began to swallow them dry.

"Come back for more in six hours if you need them," Dr. S said. "Or a real painkiller, if you like. But you need to _relax."_

When Carol left the garage clinic, the temperature, like a pendulum, had risen again. It was in the high-fifties this morning, without a trace of snow remaining on the ground, and the sun shone brightly. Carol felt a little warm beneath her heavy jacket, and she unbuttoned it and rolled up the sleeves.

As she walked up the hill, she could hear the sound of sawing and hammering below the seventh cabin, where Abraham was leading a crew in the building of the first line of fence. Daryl was down there working, along with several others. Carol imagined that Daryl had probably shed his leather jacket, and that the muscles of his strong, tanned shoulders now rippled beneath the cut-off sleeves of his T-shirt. Maybe she'd bring him some lemonade latter and watch him work up a sweat for a few minutes….

A shotgun blast interrupted her fantasy. It echoed across the mountain range. Darlene was dove hunting, along with Haley, who had brought her bow and arrow. Apparently December was a good time for the activity, with the birds heading south for the winter. It was only a shame it made so much noise, but she supposed Haley would kill any walkers that crept their way toward them while Darlene hunted, and, if her shotgun drew them, it would at least draw them away from the camp and toward the pond.

As Carol walked past Cabin 3, she passed Mateo, who with his small crew was starting to clear the future farming acreage. T-Dog was taking his ax to a tree in the center, which they would likely use for firewood, while Maggie and Mateo were pulling up shrubs.

When she reached Cabin 2, in the distance, Carol could see Eugene and Roscoe kneeling by the solar bay outside the park and fidgeting with wires. Sophia, she knew, was working in the greenhouse with Karen. Beth was watching Andre and Meghan on the playground. Despite the warming weather, Andre was wearing his adorable little gray beret and an oversized jacket, which he often refused to take off even indoors. Morgan was on foot patrol. Rosita was on duty in the watchtower. Carol wondered how the woman was coping with her break up with Abraham. Rosita hadn't joined either of the communal dinner shifts last night and had avoided both Sasha and Abraham all morning.

Careful to use her good arm, Carol pulled open the garage door of Cabin 2 to reveal the communal pantry and went to work updating the inventory. Abraham and Sasha, unlike Roscoe and Rosita, had not lost their half of the food from the gas station convenience store, and there was a lot to add to the list. She was several lines into her work when Tara stepped inside and set down a large cardboard box full of food. "This is all that was left of my father's food supply truck," she said.

"Could you unload it for me?" Carol asked. "I'm under doctor's orders to limit my lifting for another few days."

Tara pulled out three boxes of microwave popcorn first. "We couldn't figure out how to pop this without a microwave."

"Well, we can use a microwave if Roscoe and Eugene get that solar power working."

"Maybe we can even have movie nights."

"That would be fun," Carol agreed.

Tara remained to help her organize the pantry. Carol sent her out to deliver rations to the cabins for the next week, since every cabin was on its own for breakfast and lunch. Carol was alone in the pantry when Roscoe popped in.

"Got this sucker charged up for you using the solar." He set down a large battery-like-looking contraption with four outlets. "Was thinking you might want a fridge in here, but then again, that smokehouse is working right good for the meat and the root cellar'll be fine for the veggies."

"But this means I can prepare larger batches of food and then store the leftovers for a couple days," Carol said. "I can also use the microwave now. Thank you, Roscoe."

"Glad to know someone appreciates me."

Carol winced. "I know you're unhappy about Sasha and Abraham."

"Thing is…I was starting to think maybe I had a chance with her. After my wife left me, I never had a _real_ relationship again. Had a woman here and there, sure, but nothin' serious. Then I stumbled on Sasha and Tyreese. You bond, you know, to the people you're with from the start." His jaw twitched. "I'm gonna miss that big lunk."

"We all are."

"Guess Abraham really helped Sasha through his loss." He sighed. "Should be glad someone could do that for her. Don't guess I'd of been the right man to give her what she needed in that moment." He shrugged. "Don't guess I'm the right man for much of anyone."

"Roscoe, you have a beautiful voice. You can sing and play music. You're sweet and charming and good-looking." Roscoe was too slim for Carol's taste, but he had those lovely blue-green eyes, a nice smile, and a thick head of dark hair. "And there are _other_ single women in our camp besides Sasha."

"Well…that Tara Chambler's pretty damn cute," he said, right when Tara returned to the pantry with an empty box after making her deliveries. Carol tried to warn him, but he kept talking. "A little brash and ballsy, but I kind of like that in a woman. I just might set my mind to wooing the lady."

"Sorry to disappoint you, music man," Tara said from behind him. "But I'm gay."

Roscoe startled and turned at her voice, but he quickly regained his cool. He tipped up his cowboy hat and grinned. "Well, I've been told I could convert a woman."

Tara laughed. "I very much doubt that."

"You do disappoint a man, pretty miss." He nodded to them both. "See you ladies later. Gonna go charge up some more of those portable generators."

As he was walking out the door, Tara called after him, "My sister's not gay! And she's closer to your age!"

"I'll keep that in mind!" he hollered back.

Tara turned back to Carol. "He seems fairly flexible."

Carol chuckled. "He flirts with everyone," she agreed, though she was pretty sure his heart had been rather firmly set on Sasha, despite his scatter-fire approach. Carol felt a flutter of pity for him, but also a surge of hope to think that this brutal world hadn't killed off two of the things that made them most human – the ability to fall in love, and the ability to feel your heart break.


	73. Reassurance

Daryl and Rosita positioned one of the pikes in the fence. Rosita was so rough when she slammed the pike down that it rolled out of place and Daryl had to right it. She kept throwing seething glances at Sasha and Abraham at the far end of the fence.

"How many walkers ya kill this mornin' on watch?" he asked her.

"Two," she answered without looking at him.

"More than we've had in one day in a long time. Think they're migratin' in search of food?"

"Well I'm sure all the noise from the hammering isn't helping," Rosita said. "But Abraham wants his damn fence."

"We _all_ want the fence," Daryl said.

"This will help." Roscoe set down a portable electric generator. "I just charged this one up so y'all can plug in some of the power tools they got at Lowe's. Every cabin gets three or four of these babies, too."

Rosita looked down at it. Her lips snarled. "I thought we were going to have _real_ power."

"We _do_ have power," Roscoe said. "We can use these to plug stuff into and then recharge them from the solar bay."

"But we can't use the actual light switches and outlets in the cabins." She rolled her eyes. "Not exactly what I thought we were getting all those panels for. But I suppose it's what I should expect from a man who can't even hold onto a walkie talkie."

"Hell's wrong with you?" Daryl asked. "Man just brought us power!"

"Sorry," Rosita said. "But I had a bad day yesterday. You might have heard." Her eyes flashed toward the end of the fence again. "I think the whole camp heard."

"I wasn't happy 'bout it either," Roscoe said.

"At least Sasha never _pretended_ to love you," Rosita told him bitterly. "You know what Abraham said to me yesterday? He said - I thought you were the last woman in the world, but now I know you're _not_."

"Damn," Daryl muttered. "But Abraham treatin' you like shit ain't no reason for you to treat Roscoe like shit."

Rosita stomped away three steps and seized another pike.

"She's pissed off," Roscoe said. "Easier to lash out at me than at Sasha or Abraham, 'cause if she lashes out at one of them, it might end up in a physical fight, ain't that right?"

Rosita didn't respond. She lodged the pike into the fence.

"I know what it feels like to be in your shoes," Roscoe told her as Daryl helped her to root the pike.

Rosita stepped away from the fence. "You and Sasha weren't together. You have _no idea_."

"I married my first love, my summer camp sweetheart, and gave her the best damn years of my youth, and she left me for another man. You ain't the only one who's ever been jilted in this universe, Rosy."

"I'm going to get the power saw." Rosita strutted past him.

When she was out of ear shot, Roscoe said, "No wonder Abraham dropped her like a hot potato as soon as his world grew. Bit of a bitch, ain't she?"

"She's got skills, though," Daryl muttered.

Jody, who had been helping a little farther down the fence line, and who had apparently been listening in on their conversation, watched Rosita retreat. "She's got a nice ass, too," he said.

Roscoe glared at him. "Have some respect."

"Hey, you're the one who just called her a bitch. I was _complimenting_ her."

"That ain't how you compliment a woman," Roscoe said. "And you ain't old enough for her. Get back to work, boy."

"Whatever, dude. I'm closer to her age than _you_ are." Jody went back to work on the fence.

[*]

Daryl watched through the binoculars from his spot in the tree house as a walker stumbled out of the woods a few feet beyond the first small section of completed fence line, which stretched up as high as the sixth cabin. Zach, who was on foot patrol, was near enough that Daryl let him take care of it, which the young man did, with a single shot from his silenced rifle.

Three walkers in one day. This wasn't good. They needed that fence.

Daryl continued to watch as Haley approached Zach and began talking to him. She must be relieving him on foot patrol, which meant Roscoe should be here soon to relieve him in the tower.

Zach appeared to be laughing at something she said, and Haley was smiling. She punched him playfully on the shoulder. He kept talking. Maybe Darlene was right. Maybe Beth _did_ need to watch out. Maybe that's just what happened when your camp grew. Established relationships fell apart.

His stomach twisted. Uneasy thoughts tumbled through his mind. He cataloged the men in the camp, the ones without a woman: Greg, Roscoe, Morgan, Eugene, Mateo, Dr. S. Roscoe wouldn't dare come onto Carol, not in earnest. Eugene was a joke. Mateo was too old...Or maybe not. He was in good shape still. Women thought graying hair was distinguished. Hell, Carol herself had gray hair. Maybe Daryl was too _young_. He was five years younger than her. No, no…Daryl wasn't too young. Only young women liked older men. Right? Middle-aged women liked younger men. _Mateo_ was the one who was too old.

But Dr. S wasn't too old. He was in his thirties. And he was a doctor. Women loved doctors. Morgan wasn't too old, either. At least, Daryl didn't think so. He couldn't guess how old Morgan was. And then there was Greg. He was about Carol's age. Daryl was pretty sure of that. And Greg was a regular guy, a good mechanic, who had been a churchgoing father of three before the superflu killed his family. He'd probably _love_ a woman like Carol.

Daryl shook his head hard, as if that could throw the stupid thoughts right out his ear.

"Something stuck in your ear?" Roscoe asked from below. He began to scale the ladder.

"Just tryin' to shake out some water," Daryl lied.

"How'd you get water in your ear?"

"Dunno." Zach and Haley were still talking. They were standing awfully close to each other. "Better get to patrolin'!" he shouted over the rail at them. His voice echoed in the mountain amphitheater. Zach waved goodbye and headed toward the big cabin. Haley began to roam the perimeter, her compound bow loaded with a single arrow.

Daryl handed the binoculars to Roscoe and shifted his crossbow into a comfortable position on his back. "Seen a walker. Zach got it. Be alert." He headed for the ladder.

"Wait," Roscoe said. "Stay and talk awhile."

Daryl turned back. "'Bout what?"

"Not business," Roscoe said.

"A'ight," Daryl answered. He came a little farther onto the platform, leaned back against the rail, and fished in his leather jacket for a cigarette. He wasn't much for chatting, especially about personal matters. He was going to need something to occupy his mouth and hands.

He lit up, and Roscoe asked, "What happened to your homemade ones?"

"Sasha brought me back three packs."

"Considerate of her," said Roscoe, with a pained look, and Daryl wished he hadn't mentioned Sasha.

"Down to six a day now," Daryl said, just to change the subject.

"Do you think it would be in poor taste if I were to ask Karen on a date tomorrow? She and Tyreese were kind of together, and he _did_ just die."

"Yeah. Where the hell ya gonna go on a date anyhow?"

Roscoe shrugged. "Picnic lunch. Bring my guitar. Play her some music."

"Got a damn fence to build. This ain't the time for romance."

"Like you don't spend the evening drinking tea in front of the fire place and talking with Carol?" Roscoe asked.

"That ain't romance. That's …" Daryl didn't know what that was. That was something he'd never had in his life before. Something indescribable. "Why Karen?"

"Process of elimination," Roscoe replied. "Lilly's pretty, but she's got that little girl to worry about. Probably ain't interested in bringing a man into that picture. Tara's gay, so…got to rule her out, unfortunately. Then there's Haley. Now, she's beautiful, but she's a bit too young. I don't think I can dip below twenty-five without feeling like a perv."

Daryl blew smoke over the rail before asking, "Why twenty-five?"

"It's at least halfway to thirty."

"Ain't Rosita at least twenty-five?"

Roscoe snorted. "Maybe. But I'm lookin' for a woman to stroke it. Not rip it clear off."

Daryl surprised himself with his own laugh. He wasn't used to any kind of light male comradery, but he'd found himself slipping into it sometimes, here in this world.

"Carol's been good for you," Roscoe said. "You've lightened up a lot since you were a boy."

Now Daryl was suddenly reminded of his earlier worries, and he felt as if the smoke from his cigarette was sitting like a heavy cloud in his stomach. He stubbed it out on the railing. "Better get on home," he said.

Daryl headed down the rope ladder. Once home, he did something he didn't usually do. He cuddled up with Carol without being asked to cuddle. She was sleeping on her back, probably because of the shoulder, and he lay an arm across her waist and draped a leg over both of hers as he settled his head on the pillow beside her.

She stirred awake and yawned. "Any trouble?"

"One walker. Zach got 'em." He bent his head and inhaled her scent. "Smell like peaches," he murmured into her neck.

"It's the shampoo. It's so nice that we can shower three times a week now, with that solar powering the pumps." They'd been allowed only one shower a week previously, when the camp was still small and the pumps had to be powered by gas generator. Daryl had taken his before dinner today, after all that work on the fence.

"Like it," he said. It wasn't really the shampoo he wanted to talk about, but he had trouble saying what he wanted to. "Like you," he managed finally.

"Good. I'm glad you do. Because I kind of like you, too."

He lifted his head, and when he kissed her, he could feel the teasing curve of her lips in the darkness.

She buried her hand in his hair and toyed with the strands at the base of his neck, which were growing longer. He loved the soothing feel of her fingertips.

Carol pulled away. "I'm under doctor's orders not to be too vigorous."

"Yeah. Sorry 'bout that."

"It was worth it. The one time. But you're going to have to wait at least a week, because my period's probably starting soon, too. So there's no point in trying to win that box of condoms from Darlene."

"Didn't take that bet. Ain't bettin' on who my little girl crushes on!"

She chuckled. "I think Darlene's right, though. Patrick taught Sophia to play chess after dinner today. It's only a matter of time before she decides he's dreamy."

"Not with those big honkin' glasses, she ain't."

"Would you rather she crushed on a much older boy like Jody?"

"Hell no! He was checkin' out Rosita's ass today."

"Seriously? Wait," she asked suspiciously, "how did you notice that?"

"Damn kid just announced he was. Guess he thought we'd pat him on the back."

"Hmm."

"That kid makes me start to like Zach."

"You _already_ liked Zach."

"Maybe," he admitted. But then he thought of Zach flirting with Haley tonight, if that's what he'd been doing, and he thought of Abraham leaving Rosita. The heaviness returned to his gut.

Carol yawned.

Daryl needed to say something, but he wasn't quite sure what it was.

"Good night," Carol said.

Finally, the words spilled out him: "I'm yer husband. And yer my wife."

She was strangely quiet. He closed his eyes and his heart slowed in his chest, but it thudded again when her fingertips caressed his cheek. "Yes, Daryl. You're my husband. And I'm your wife." She kissed him softly. "Your very sleepy wife." She kissed his forehead before she rolled on her good side.

He rolled too. His arm lingered around her waist until he, too, fell asleep.

[*]

The next day, Daryl built and set traps for live rabbits and possum, so he did't have much time to hunt. Fortunately, Darlene and Haley got a half a dozen doves.

"Might want to lay off the shotgun," he told Darlene as they crossed paths coming out of the woods. "Been seein' more walkers. Think you're drawin' 'em."

"Like the power saws ain't loud?" she asked.

"Don't need to _add_ to it."

"Fine," she said. "But Haley," she nodded to the young woman beside her, "can't get near as many with a bow, no matter how good a shot she is."

"At least there won't be so much buckshot to dig 'round," Daryl replied.

"You're just jealous you ain't the only one feeding these people now," Darlene told him.

Daryl grunted. When they started walking down the hill toward the park, Darlene with the doves slung over her shoulder, they ran into Patrick. "Ms. Cox," he said, "I just wanted to thank you for those doves you brought back yesterday. It was a real treat. It would be an honor to shake your hand."

"Yeah?" Darlene asked. "Well aren't you just the sweetest thing." She extended her hand and Patrick shook it with a grin before scurrying off. "Did you see that?" she asked Daryl.

"I'm the one got the damn deer!" he huffed.

"Well, we haven't eaten _that_ yet."

"Why didn't he thank _me_?" Haley asked. "I got two of those doves yesterday."

"He's probably scared of you because you're too pretty," came a voice from behind them.

Haley grinned and turned around. "Hey, Zach. What are you up to?"

"Just got off my watchtower shift. Going to help with the fence."

"Me too," Haley said. "I'll go with you."

They walked ahead together.

"Where's Beth?" Darlene called after Zach.

Zach turned and walked backwards. "Doing schoolwork with the little kids." He turned around and walked forward again.

When they were out of earshot, Darlene said, "Hope he doesn't pull an Abraham on Beth."

[*]

Carol and Sophia were cleaning up their little kitchen when they heard a strange pounding on the front door, like a walker throwing itself against the wood. Carol grabbed Daryl's wooden .45 Colt rifle down from over the fireplace because her AR-15 was in the bedroom. She went to peer through the window. There stood Daryl, with a pine tree in his hands, kicking the door.

She opened it, and he brought the tree into the living room and stood it up. "Just the right size."

Carol returned the rifle to its place. "We don't usually decorate for Christmas until the day after Sophia's birthday." The girl was turning _thirteen_. The number unnerved Carol. "That keeps them separate."

Daryl's face fell, and Carol wished she hadn't said it. She'd probably made him feel like an outsider to their traditions. Carol was struggling for the words to take it back when Sophia entered the living room and said, "But we're a new family now and we're going to do things differently. Dad and I want to decorate _tonight._ Right, Dad?"

Daryl grinned. "Yeah. And me and Soph found all them decorations in the attic yesterday."

"I'll go get the box," Sophia said.

Carol plugged in a CD player to one of the portable generators and got some Christmas carols going while Sophia and Daryl got the tree situated in a stand from the box and hung the stockings, which read Mom, Dad, and Joey. Tomorrow, she'd take out the stitching on Joey's and put Sophia's name on there.

Carol put on the kettle for hot chocolate and watched them decorate. She remembered how with Ed this ritual always ended in a fit of anger, usually when it came to wrestling with the Christmas lights. Somehow, their tangled nature was always Carol's fault. So she tensed instinctively when Sophia told Daryl he was clustering the ornaments too close together. Her body was ready for an outburst, but of course there was none. Daryl only sounded mildly irritated, and a bit defensive, when he said, "Didn't know there's a way you's ' _sposed_ to do it."

"There isn't," Sophia assured him. She didn't say it the way she would have to Ed - hastily agreeing to avoid his anger. She said it like she was aware that she might have hurt Daryl's feelings. "There's just the way you do it and the way I do it. You do your side any way you want. And I'll do mine. But the star goes on top. That's not negotiable."

Carol smiled as she watched Sophia go back to decorating and thought how much her little girl was maturing. Without the weight of Ed's shadow to bear her down, she was sprouting her wings.

[*]

When Daryl went to check his traps the next morning, he found a possum in one, but it was being feasted on by a walker. "Mangy thief," he muttered as he shot the decaying creature in the head.

He searched the walker's pockets and found a pack of Cinnamon Trident gum and a wallet. Daryl pulled the driver's license out of the wallet. The address read Dalton, Georgia. That was the nearest mid-sized city, but it was still a good thirty-five miles from these cabins.

"Yer a long ways from home," he said, dropping the wallet back on the body and looking over the clothing. The walker wasn't a hiker lost in the woods, either. Not with those worn-out black dress shoes. Maybe he'd been visiting someone in the nearby village when he died, and over time he'd wound his way up this mountain, like all the other village walkers they'd been finding lately.

The second trap was empty. The third had another possum, but it had already been consumed. Daryl moved onto his last trap, which fortunately had a live rabbit. He examined it for walker bites, found it clean, and reset his traps.

[*]

Mateo slid open the door to the hutch he'd built in his backyard, and Daryl released the rabbit inside.

Sophia fed it some grass through an opening in the grate.

"I'm calling it Flossie," Meghan said as she, too, shoved a long blade of grass through the grate.

Andre stood on his tip toes to peer inside the hutch. "Hop!" he shouted. "Hop, hop, hoppity, hop! H-O-P hop!"

"Damn," Daryl muttered. "Kid can spell already?"

"Patrick and I have been teaching him," Sophia said.

"You and Patrick, huh?" Daryl asked suspiciously. "Why are you and – "

He didn't get a chance to finish his question. Andre had run off, and Sophia was chasing him down. But Daryl kept an eye on the kids' table later that evening at dinner, where Sophia, Patrick, Carl, Meghan, and Andre were all laughing and talking.

Carol brought up his strange vigilance later that night, when they were in bed.

"Just want to make sure I ain't got nothin' to worry 'bout from that boy. He's _fourteen,_ ya know."

"And as innocent as Sophia," Carol assured him. "Patrick is a nice boy. It's _Carl_ you've got to worry about."

"What?"

Carol laughed. "I'm teasing you." She turned off the lamp, a small bedside one that, along with the space heater, was plugged into a generator. "Get some sleep."


	74. Sprayed

A rap-rap-rap sounded on the door followed by Roscoe's cry of "Power man!" Carol let him in and handed him their drained portable generator.

"I've got a lot to re-charge today," he said. "I probably can't get this back to you until tomorrow morning."

"That's fine. The other one is still reading half full. We shouldn't need the space heaters tonight. It's not supposed to be too cold. Daryl and I can just cuddle up."

"That sounds lovely."

He said it so wistfully that Carol felt sorry for him. "How are you doing, Roscoe?"

"Why? Did someone say something?"

"Uh…no…" Carol tried not to appear too curious. "Something about _what_?"

"Nothing," Roscoe said. He patted the portable generator. "I'll get this baby back to you soon as I can." And then he was out the door.

[*]

"Goddamnit!" Daryl's first three traps had been empty, but the last one contained a live skunk, which promptly sprayed him. He yanked out his hunting knife and slit its throat quickly. "Why ain't ya in yer den?" Skunks binge ate in the fall, and then hunkered down in expectation of winter. They weren't usually out looking for food in December. But maybe something had driven this one out.

Walkers.

Daryl examined the skunk and found a light bite on the side. It must have gotten away from the walker and run, wounded, into Daryl's trap. The walker had likely remained behind to feast on the other inhabitants of the den. There was no use trying to eat an infected skunk. He tossed it roughly aside and looked around.

How many walkers were in these woods now?

[*]

A pile of clothes mounted on the kitchen table, and Carol's sewing machine, which was plugged into their second generator, pumped its needle into the pants she was hemming for Mateo. When she heard the door open, she took her foot off the pedal.

Daryl strolled inside, looking angry. His traps must have been empty. She stood and went to offer him a comforting embrace, but immediately pulled away when a foul stench hit her nose. "What happened to you?"

"Skunk."

"Well, we can't put you in a bath of tomato juice. The communal pantry only has a dozen cans, and that would be a waste."

He went to the kitchen and pulled dishwasher detergent out from under the sink. He then grabbed a jar of hydrogen peroxide that was sitting on the counter from the last time Carol had treated one of his scrapes. "Just need a fourth a cup of bakin' soda now."

"In the pantry," she told him.

While he was bathing, she washed his clothes in dishwasher detergent in the kitchen sink and then hung them out back on the line to dry.

Daryl came out of the bathroom wearing fresh clothes and smelling profusely of peaches, with a hint of alcohol and lemon-lime underneath. "What did you do?" she asked.

"Smelled like peroxide. So I used yer shampoo."

"On your whole body?"

"My skin itches," he said.

"Well I would think so, between that and the detergent. I'll tell you what. When you get home from watch tonight, and Sophia's in bed, I'll rub you down with lotion."

"Don't want to smell even _more_ girly."

" _Unscented_ lotion."

An uncertain murmur sounded in his throat.

"Trust me, you'll _enjoy_ it. I'll rub you down _all over_."

He stepped a little closer. "Yeah?"

She kissed him. "Yeah." She stepped back and covered her mouth and nose with her hand.

"If ya can tolerate me."

"I've tolerated worse," she told him, and then wished she hadn't said it. He would probably think she meant Ed. "I used to smell walkers every day," she hastened.

"Ain't never rubbed down a walker though."

"The smell will subside in a few hours," she promised him.

[*]

Carol couldn't work on the fence or do other hard labor yet because of her shoulder, so she finished knitting the gloves she was making for Sophia's birthday present. The girl only had one pair that fit.

She'd made this new pair in an array of rainbow colors, and now that she was done and looking at them, it occurred to her that maybe Sophia didn't love rainbows as much as she used to, that maybe she would think they were _uncool_.

Carol sighed and hid the gloves away in her drawer before heading down to the big cabin to start cooking.

[*]

Roscoe crested the platform and steadied the rifle that swayed on his shoulder. He took a step back. "You smell...unusual."

"Got sprayed by a skunk," Daryl told him.

"Well, you don't smell like a _skunk_ at least. Just... _unusual_."

"It's peaches and peroxide."

"Ah. Well, sorry I'm late relieving you."

Daryl handed Roscoe the binoculars and shouldered his crossbow.

"It's just…" Roscoe slipped the binoculars around his neck. "I been with Rosita. So I lost track of time."

"A'ight. Wait...What?"

"Last night, she came into my bedroom and asked if I wanted her to fuck me. Her words, of course. Thought I was dreaming at first. Turns out I was not. So we did it again this evening."

Daryl was puzzled. Rosita was the one and only woman Roscoe _didn't_ like.

 _"_ Ain't you gonna say anything?" Roscoe asked.

What the hell was he _supposed_ to say? "Congratulations?"

"I don't think congratulations are in order. I ain't a fool. I know it's revenge sex."

"Mhm."

"She might screw me a few more times, but eventually she'll realize it doesn't make her feel better about Abraham. Then she'll stop. But I figure, until then, at least I'm gettin' laid."

"Ah."

"Hell ya tellin' me all this for?"

"Because I know you won't talk about it with anyone. Probably not even Carol. And I guess I just needed to get it off my chest. I feel guilty."

"Hell for?"

"I don't know," Roscoe said as he removed the safety on his rifle. "I kind of feel like I'm using her for sex."

"Sounds like she's usin' you."

"Guess we're usin' each other." Roscoe sighed.

Daryl thought Roscoe was done, so he started toward the rope ladder, but then Roscoe asked, "Think she'd go on a romantic picnic with me, if I asked her to?"

Daryl turned toward him again. "Picnic?" he asked. " _Rosita?_ Hell ya think?"

"See, that's the problem right there."

"What's the problem?"

"I'm having sex with a woman I cannot take on a picnic."

Daryl glanced longingly at the rope ladder.

"Go on," Roscoe said. "You don't have to talk to me anymore."

"Just want to go home to my wife."

"You know, that's the first time I've ever heard you call Carol that?" When Daryl didn't answer, he continued, "You're a lucky man. You and Glenn. Committed, married men. You two are my role models."

Daryl's brow furrowed. He couldn't quite wrap his mind around being referred to in the same sentence as _Glenn_ and _role model_. "Nite," he said. "Stay alert."

Roscoe saluted him sarcastically. "Yes, sir!"

[*]

The scented candles flickered dimly on the nightstand. Daryl was glad for the low light, because he'd never been this thoroughly exposed before a woman. At first, when Carol had massaged his back, he'd tensed, until she'd bent and kissed his deepest lash, and then he'd relaxed into the bed.

Now he was on his back with his eyes closed, and he couldn't think about anything but the feel of her soft, warm hands sliding all over his naked flesh, massaging his shoulders, arms, chest, stomach, and then..."Oh sweet Jesus," he groaned. "Yeah, girl. Do that."

When he'd recovered from his "massage," Carol asked him to do the same thing for her. She shed her night clothes and let him roam her entire nude body with his hands. He reveled in her softness and her beauty. When he was massaging her thighs with gentle strokes and working his way inward, she told him she wanted his tongue. He eased her legs apart and dipped his head to taste her need.

By the time she was coming, her hips jerking up from the bed, he was hard again. After her last spasm, he rolled on a condom and pushed into her. He exploded a few strokes later, and her name fell in a low moan from his lips while he shuddered against her.

After that, he couldn't speak. Maybe she couldn't either, because she just tossed the condom, blew out the candles, pulled the blanket up around them, and curled close in peaceful silence.

After a few minutes, though, she rolled away, to the edge of her side of the bed.

"Still smell bad?" he asked.

"Not _bad._ Just too much of too many things."

He threw off the blanket. "I'll go sleep on the couch."

"Don't. I like you near. When you're in bed with me, I sleep better."

With one foot on the floor, Daryl smiled in the darkness. He eased himself back in bed, rolled to face her back, and closed his eyes.

[*]

Both sides of the perimeter fence extended up to the fifth cabin, and the sounds of hammering and sawing filled the air, as Daryl wen to check his traps. He'd caught one living, female possum, but a squirrel had gotten in his second trap, which he killed for eating. The third trap was empty. A walker was feasting on the rabbit in the fourth.

He searched the walker after killing it and found yet another Dalton, Georgia address on its driver's license. "Shit," he muttered to himself. "This ain't good." He picked a pack of Tic Tacs out of the walker's wallet, slid it in his own back pocket, and then tossed the wallet.

Daryl reset his traps. He began to build two more specifically for walkers. If he could snag them, maybe he could keep them away from the trapped game.

[*]

Carol rolled a cart with two pitchers of cold lemonade she had mixed from powder out to the fence line and started pouring the workers drinks. It might be mid-December, but the sun was shining high and bright today, and they were working hard and losing water in sweat.

They thanked her one by one as they took the proffered drinks. Rosita came up at about the same time as Abraham and snatched up two cups. "I'm getting one for Roscoe." She looked at Abraham pointedly. "I figure it's the best I can do, after that ride he gave me last night."

Abraham blinked.

Rosita sashayed off, the movement of her hips deliberately rocking her ass. Jody, who'd just grabbed a cup of lemonade, craned his neck sideways to watch. "Damn. Roscoe's a _lucky_ man." The teenager drained his cup and returned it to the cart before going back to the fence.

Abraham sipped his cup slowly. He looked at Jody with angry eyes, then with curiosity at Roscoe, who was taking the cup from Rosita's hand. Abraham set his empty cup on the cart. "Thank you, Carol. That was much needed." He returned to his work beside Sasha.

Darlene set her empty cup to the cart. "I'm gonna help you get this back to the kitchen." She began pushing the cart roughly away, and the empty pitchers shook as it rolled over pebbles in the road.

Carol gathered the empty cups from the rest of the workers and then walked quickly to catch up.

"Okay, let's gossip," Darlene said when Carol was beside her.

Carol took hold of the toppled plastic cups and stacked them together.

"You heard that exchange, didn't you?" Darlene asked.

"Yeah." Carol put the stack of cups back on the cart, upside down, in a steadier position. "And I'm a little dumbfounded. I didn't think Rosita even liked Roscoe."

"Rosita doesn't like anybody. Except Abraham. And it was pretty obvious what she was trying to do there."

"Poor Roscoe," Carol said.

"Roscoe's no idiot," Darlene told her. "He's a big boy. I bet he knows damn well what she's doing. Y'all think he's so sweet and innocent. Well I got news for you. He ain't." She lifted the cart to get it over a rock in the road and began yanking it up the hill toward the Big Cabin again. "Okay, well…he _is_ sweet. He's always been a sweetheart. But _innocent_ he's not."

"I don't think Rosita's good for him," said Carol, taking hold of the other end of the cart.

Darlene shrugged. "We've all got itches that need scratchin'. That's all I was doing with T-Dog at first, and look how well that turned out."

"Maybe," Carol said, "but if Roscoe's busy with Rosita, and then she eventually gets tired of him, he might miss out on a chance with someone he's more suited for."

"It's sweet, the way you look out for him."

"He's like family," Carol said. "He _is_ family," she corrected herself.

"Roscoe's gonna be just fine," Darlene assured her. "Worst that happens is he actually falls in love with Rosita, gets his heart broken, and then he gets another good song out of it."

[*]

Daryl slid the female possum into the cage Mateo had constructed in his backyard. Mateo looked at the solitary animal. "You know," he said, "they cannot fuck _themselves_." Mateo had a colorful vocabulary around men, but he never uttered so much as a _damn_ in the presence of a woman.

"I'm tryin'," Daryl assured him. "Ain't as easy as ya think."

"Where to now? Working on the fence?"

"Council meetin'."

The Council was already gathered when Daryl got to the study. He shut the door behind himself.

Sasha leaned back against a bookcase and crossed her arms over her chest. "The natives are getting restless."

"Hell's that mean?" Daryl asked.

"They don't want to wait until after Christmas for a Constitution. They want a clear sense of the governing structure, and their rights within it, _now_. I've had six different people come to me about it."

"Then let's hammer this thing out tonight," Darlene said. "Camp-wide meeting after the second dinner shift."

[*]

The camp-wide meeting ended up lasting until almost midnight, with everyone crowded into the living room and kitchen of the big cabin. Andre was put to bed before it was over, and Meghan fell asleep in her Aunt Tara's lap, but after some haggling, they got a formal Constitution written.

Everyone age twelve or over signed the written document. Council Member terms were limited to seven months, including time already served, which meant elections would be held again in early summer.

"I think we're really building something here," Rick told Daryl. "A future."

Daryl thought about that future as he drifted off to sleep that night, with Carol curled in bed beside him, her back pressed to his stomach, their space heater crackling on the lowest setting and bathing the cool room in warmth.

[*]

The walker gnashed its decaying jaws as Daryl circled it to examine how this trap had worked better, since his first walker trap was in pieces. He stabbed the walker in the forehead, freed its carcass, and searched it. There was nothing of use in the pockets. The driver's license, to his unease, read Dalton, GA.

His first animal snare had snagged a live doe rabbit, but his other two traps were empty, and the last contained the blood-soaked bones and lingering remnants of what was likely a small, young, freshly devoured coyote. When he saw it, Daryl immediately readied his crossbow and scanned the woods until he heard branches snap. He followed the sound and shot two more walkers.

"Let's see where y'all uglies is from," he said as he searched for their driver's licenses.

Dalton, Georgia. _Again._

"Aw hell."

That evening at the daily Council meeting in the library, he said, "Need to finish this damn fence. We got to work from sunrise to sunset. Them walker's migratin' from Dalton. Found three more today. All Dalton addresses."

"We can pull Karen from the greenhouse and put her on the fence," Maggie said. "Mateo and T-Dog and I can stop clearing that farm land and join the fence team full-time."

"If you can work," Carol told her. "You've been feeling sick, haven't you?"

"I think it was just some twenty-four hour bug," Maggie said. "The nausea went away by dinner. But I'll go see Dr. S. tomorrow if it comes back."

"What was the population of Dalton?" Sasha asked.

"Round thirty-four thousand," Darlene answered.

"Not good," Maggie muttered.

"Ain't as bad as when we were camped near Atlanta," Daryl said, "and they's probably goin' in all different directions, but could be a few hundred that make it all the way up here over time."

"You need to stop hunting alone," Carol told him.

"Take Haley," Darlene told him. "She's a snap shot with that bow, but she needs to learn to hunt. She's good at killing walkers if you run into more."

"Fine. I'll take the damn girl. But don't want to hear it from y'all if we get less meat 'cause she scares off the game."

"We've got that deer," Sasha said.

"That's for _Christmas_ ," Daryl insisted.

"But we can eat it sooner, right, if we have to?"

"Taste a lot better if it smokes longer. And we ougghta have something special for the day."

"Who knew you'd be such a serious holiday lover," Sasha said. "I had you pegged for more of a grinch."

"Redneck Christmas is a big deal," Darlene told her. "It was almost a competition for whose daddy could best fill the space under that tree. Remember that year Clevus made a tire tree?"

"That thing was huge," Daryl agreed.

"We can go without game for a few days," Carol said. "We've got some Spam from the gas station convenience store. Plenty of beans for protein."

"All right then," Sasha said. "Let's get this fence built."

Carol sighed. "I thought we'd be safe this high up in the mountains, this far from any major city."

"Ain't safe anywhere," Daryl said. "Got to _make_ ourselves safe."


	75. Sledding

"How old are you?" Haley asked Daryl.

"Shhh! Cain't talk while ya's huntin'."

"I thought we were just checking the traps. Besides, I can talk and shoot walkers at the same time." She raised her bow and let fly an arrow, which lodged in the forehead of a walker caught up in one of Daryl's walker traps. "See?"

"Talkin' scares off the game," Daryl said while freeing the dead walker and searching its pockets. He removed a roll of mints.

Haley shot another walker that was writhing in his second walker trap. This one had a pack of cigarettes and a pack of gum that Daryl pocketed. He was planning to save them for Sophia's Christmas stocking.

Haley nodded to the rabbit in one of his snares. "You got one. You really know what you're doing."

Daryl walked over to the trap and squatted down. "Damn. Been bit!" He nodded to the walkers he'd cut from the traps. "Probably by one of those no-accounts, 'fore they got caught up." He sighed. "Well, get close and I'll show ya how to kill it quick." He unlatched his hunting knife and drew it out. "Put it out its misery."

Haley winced, but she squatted down beside him to observe.

[*]

Carol buttoned up her coat and shoved her hands in her pockets. It was getting cold again. She passed a group of workers sawing wood and was about to head into the garage clinic for a "wound check" when Maggie walked out, her face looking long and frightened. "Can I talk to you?" she whispered.

Carol detoured with her to a picnic table to the left of the cabin, where they sat down. "What is it?" Carol asked. "Are you badly sick?"

"I'm _pregnant_."

"Oh."

"We were being careful. We used a condom every single time. But…you know. I guess they're only 85 percent effective."

"How far along?"

"Five weeks, most likely. I didn't notice because my periods have always been erratic without the pill. I'm not going to do what Lori did and risk having it turn in there and not come out. But what if it dies on its own?"

"We have Dr. S now, Nurse Lilly, and Darlene, still," Carol reassured her. "We have a lot of medical minds to put together here. If we'd had all this when it happened to Lori, she might still be alive." Carol felt a pang of guilt. "You'll get excellent prenatal care. You're young and healthy. This baby is going to be born _alive_ and _well_." She sounded more confident than she felt. The horror of those two tiny turned fetuses still haunted her dreams some nights.

"Thanks," Maggie said with a weak smile. "Listen, don't tell anyone for a while. I'm going to tell Glenn privately tonight."

[*]

That night, when Daryl wanted to make love, Carol offered him a blow job instead. He didn't seem to mind in the least – after all, it wasn't something she offered often, and he clearly enjoyed them. But when they were curled up together in bed later, and she told him they weren't having "potentially procreative" sex from here on out, he said, "Say what now?"

"I don't want to do anything that could possibly get me pregnant."

"Got condoms."

"Condoms aren't 100% effective."

"I could pull out."

"Daryl, that's even riskier than condoms. I don't want to risk getting pregnant. Even as old as I am, and as low as the odds are, I don't want to risk it. Not after what happened to Lori."

"Ya told me Lori killed it." Carol had finally confessed that detail to him, because the horror of the entire event rested so heavily on her heart, but no one had ever told Rick what his wife had done. "If ya get pregnant, ya ain't gonna kill it. Just _have_ it. Be fine."

Carol was a surprised at how casually he seemed to accept the idea of her having his baby, as if it was all just a part of the circle of life he accepted without question and not a dramatically life-changing event. "It could die on its own," she reminded him quietly. "Inside. And turn."

"Oh." His arms tensed around her.

"I'm sorry," she said. "But we can still do lots of other creative things. Just not that _one_ thing."

"Why'd ya decide this just now? After we already done it so many times?"

"Don't tell anyone, but Maggie's pregnant."

"Shit," he muttered. "Got to get this damn fence built. Walkers ain't no good for babies."

[*]

Carol couldn't be serious about the no-real-sex rule. Daryl wanted to be _inside_ her. That was as close as two human beings could get, and he _needed_ to be close to her. He'd never needed to be close to someone before, but now, sometimes he felt the need so badly it made him ache all over, like a whole-body burn that couldn't be soothed unless he somehow sunk into her like the ocean.

She was just scared, Daryl told himself. She'd get over it eventually, when Maggie's pregnancy turned out just fine. Until then, he could handle it. He'd gone as long as eleven months without sex once, when he was in his early thirties. And, hell, there was a silver lining on this dark cloud - maybe he'd get more blow jobs out of the situation. And, even if he wasn't getting more of those, Carol had said they could do other _creative_ stuff. He didn't have a clue what _she_ meant by that, but his mind had no trouble wandering all sorts of places...

"Penny for your thoughts," Haley said.

Daryl flushed. "Shh!"

"Sorry. It's just...walking through the woods gets really boring without talking."

"Cain't see game if ya's - "

 _Woooosh!_ Haley's arrow soared outward but downward. What the hell was she even shooting at it? It wasn't until the tip struck earth that he realized she'd speared a snake on it. "You were saying?"

"Ain't bad," he admitted. "Got it pinned. _Now_ whatcha ya gonna do with it?"

"You tell me, Coach."

"Stop callin' me that."

"Sorry. It's habit. I've had an archery coach since I was ten. And you're a good hunting coach. You just need more _patience_."

He grunted and walked over to the snake. Daryl sliced its head off, just above where the arrow had pinned it. Haley crouched down to watch. "Careful," he warned. "Like a walker head. Keeps bitin'."

"Really?" Haley watched the snake's mouth open and close. "That's so weird."

"Seen one go on twenty minutes once."

"You just watched and timed it?" Haley asked.

"I's a boy. I's curious." He stabbed his knife in the head.

"Strange."

"Ain't no stranger than a walker head," he said.

"I meant you." She shrugged. "I guess it's not strange, really, though, when I think about it. You have a scientific mind. Like Eugene."

"Ain't nobody ever compared me to _Eugene_ before."

"Now what?" Halley asked.

He picked up the body of the snake. "Show ya how to skin it when we get back. Let's check the traps."

[*]

"A buck," Mateo said as Daryl slid the rabbit into the hutch. "Finally. Excellent."

"Can we call it Bugs?" Meghan asked. She and Sophia had stopped playing when they saw Daryl walking down the road with the rabbit in a closed net. They'd followed him to Mateo's backyard.

"Sure," Sophia told her. "Okay, Bugs, you make lots of babies with Flossie and Mopsy now."

"Can I name the babies, too?" Meghan asked.

"Uh…." Sophia gave her a wary look. "You probably don't want to get too attached to the babies."

"Why not?" Meghan asked.

"Because we are farming these rabbits," Mateo explained to her. "We are breeding them for food."

"We're going to eat the bunnies?" Meghan cried.

"Oh boy," Sophia muttered. She put a hand on the little girl's shoulder. "Come on. Let's go help my mom in the kitchen."

[*]

"Just us invalids," Maggie said as she opened a can of brussels sprouts, "working in the kitchen." Given the risky nature of miscarriage in this world, Dr. S. insisted that Maggie be pulled from fence duty immediately.

"Feeding people's not so bad," Carol told her. "It can be rewarding. People love you for it." Carol took down three large casserole dishes. "How did Glenn take the news?"

"He was terrified at first. Afraid for me, but Dr. S has been very reassuring about our chances for a healthy pregnancy. Also, he's done surgery, so...if worse comes to worst...it shouldn't happen like it did with Lori."

Carol winced.

"No one blames you or Darlene," Maggie hastened.

"Rick did."

Maggie drained the vegetables in the sink. "Rick's well beyond that now. Rick's building a new life with Michonne. Maybe you should talk to him more often, instead of making assumptions about what he thinks."

Carol's hand froze on the bag of rice she was opening. "What's that mean?"

"Just some friendly advice. I'd like to see you two get along better. I bet Daryl would, too. You know, Rick's his best friend. As far as Daryl _has_ best friends."

[*]

At dinner that evening, Glenn was getting a lot of congratulations and pats on the back. Every man was doing it, so Daryl figured he better do it, too. He walked over and stood behind Glenn's chair. "Yer boys can swim," he said. "Way to knock 'er up." He opened wide his hand and slapped Glenn on the shoulder. Maybe he did it a little too hard, because Glenn jerked forward into the table, and it squealed as it moved a few centimeters.

"Uh...thanks." Glenn, with the help of a smiling Rick on the other end, straightened the table.

T-Dog, who was sitting next to Glenn, said, "I'm happy for you, I truly am, but..." He looked over Rick's head to make sure Darlene was still at the kitchen bar and not too close to them, and then he leaned forward and said in a low voice, "Now this pregnancy has got all the women scared. Darlene was _already_ insisting on double birth control, but now..." He shook his head.

Daryl sympathized, if only silently.

[*]

The refrigerator hummed as Carol opened the door and slid in the leftovers from second dinner shift. Rick stepped into the garage pantry from the kitchen door. "Hey, great dinner," he said.

"Thank you." Carol shut the refrigerator. "I think we're going to have a buffet of leftovers from all the meals at the end of the week."

Rick leaned back against a set of shelves with sorghum seed, flour, and rice. "Listen," he said, "a little birdie reminded me that maybe I never properly apologized for the way I reacted when Lori died. For the way I blamed you."

"Was that little birdie named Maggie?"

"Possibly." He wrapped his hand around one of the metal supports on the shelves. "So I wanted to tell you I'm sorry."

"I understand it was an extremely difficult time for you."

"You and I haven't always seen eye to eye, Carol. You wanted to go to the cabins, and I wanted to go to the CDC. You tried to save Lori's life, and I blamed you for her death. Well, I was wrong both times. I admit it. But just because I was wrong _then_ doesn't mean I don't have good ideas _now_. Ideas maybe you might be open minded enough to listen to, instead of always assuming I'm trying to usurp my way onto the Council."

"I don't assume you're - "

"- You do."

"It's just...you demanded a recount." Then Carol blurted out the thing that bothered her own wounded pride: "You didn't think I could _possibly_ be elected!"

"That's not true." Rick stepped away from the shelf and a little closer to her. "I mean, it _is_ true that I demanded a recount, but it's _not_ true I didn't think you could be elected. Hell, _I_ voted for you."

"You did?" Carol never would have guessed that.

"Sure. You'd been with us since the start - well, since before _I_ was with _us_. And you've had good ideas all along the way. Listen, I'm not trying to take over anything. I'm trying to _serve._ This community. These people. I've been a public servant since I was nineteen. It's all I know how to do."

"Now I feel kind of like an ass," Carol admitted.

Rick chuckled and looked down at an oil stain on the garage floor. Then he returned his eyes to her. "So, peace?" He held out his hand.

"Peace," she said and shook it.

When his hand slid from hers, Rick said, "Maggie told me what Lori did."

Carol's heart sank into her stomach.

"I understand why you and Darlene never told me. But I was so worried about Maggie being pregnant, about what happened to Lori happening to her. So Maggie just...she let it out. She told me the truth. What she knew Lori did. How she killed those babies. And how, with a normal pregnancy, being regularly monitored by Dr. S, that's not nearly as likely to happen." He breathed in hard through his nostrils and his lip trembled.

"Oh, Rick. I'm so sorry. For everything you went through."

"You went through it, too. You had to live that nightmare. You were there."

"But she was your wife. Those were your babies."

"They were Shane's," he said. "But I would have made them mine."

"I know you would have." She stepped forward and hugged him, and he hugged back.

They drew apart when there was a cough at the open garage door of the pantry. Daryl was standing there. "Ready?" he asked Carol.

She nodded. "You take care, Rick." She patted his shoulder and walked out to join her husband.

Daryl nodded a greeting to Rick and then pulled down the garage door. Sophia, who was with him, began to walk ahead of them toward their cabin.

Daryl walked silently beside her until they were passing the park and Sophia was a good ways ahead of them, and then he asked, "Hell's all that huggin' 'bout?"

"Rick and I were having a talk. About Lori and what happened."

"And that required huggin'?"

Carol chuckled. "It was emotional. And it was a good talk. We needed it." She laced her arm through his and leaned against him as they walked. "It was a friendly hug. Not the kind of hug I give you."

"Mhmhm."

"If you don't believe me, I'll show you the difference when we're alone in bed."

"Believe ya."

She smiled. "I'll show you the difference anyway."

That earned a light twitch of the lips out of him. But then his attention was distracted elsewhere. "Slow down, Soph!" he ordered. "Stick with us." Sophia slackened her pace and came to a stop to wait for them to catch up. In a lower voice, to Carol, he explained, "too many damn walkers around. Got to get this fence finished."

[*]

Daryl took Haley hunting again the next morning. She was impressively accurate with that compound bow and picked off any approaching walkers without hesitation (three today, alone and hungry in the woods), but she didn't know a damn thing about sign cutting, or even where to hit which animals. She could hit any spot you _told_ her to, but she didn't know which spots to hit. So Daryl continued to train her.

The traps were empty, except for two walkers. Daryl tracked a snake to its winter den, and Haley killed it. They followed deer tracks, and lost them after a mile. They spooked three squirrels out of a tree, shot them, and called it a day.

"Are Zach and Beth married?" Haley asked him as they were walking back from the woods.

"They's together."

"Yeah, well, I can see that. But are they _married_?"

"Been together since he got here."

"She's kind of young for him, isn't she?" Haley asked. "I mean, he's almost _my_ age."

"All y'all's kids to me."

"I'm twenty-two."

"Yeah. Like I said. Kid."

"I'm hardly a kid," she said. "It's not like I'm a teenager like Beth. I can't be _that_ much younger than you." She patted him on his shoulder. He didn't instinctively flinch away, like he would have a couple of months ago, but he stiffened slightly. " _Kid_." She shook her head and laughed.

[*]

"My birthday's tomorrow," Sophia said over her oatmeal the next morning.

"I know," Carol told her. "You've only mentioned it six times in the past twenty-four hours."

Daryl sipped his coffee. He wasn't eating because he'd traded some of their cabin's weekly breakfast and lunch rations for the ingredients Carol would need to make Sophia's birthday pie and for microwave popcorn for her party. He'd gone without breakfast and lunch yesterday as well. Carol knew all this, and so she pushed her bowl of oatmeal across the table to him, but he pushed it right back.

"Ain't hungry," he said and stood.

"I'm going to be _thirteen!_ " Sophia said with a grin.

Carol still wasn't quite used to the idea that her daughter was growing up. "Says who?"

"God and Nature," Sophia replied. "Father Time."

Daryl drained his mug and set it in the sink. "Goin' huntin'."

"I doubt it," Carol said. "Have you looked outside?"

Sophia rushed to the window. "Snow!" she shouted. "And lots of it! Not like before! Sledding snow!"

"Take a day off," Carol told Daryl. "Let it settle. The camp can have rice and beans for dinner tonight. What are the chances you'll catch anything in this anyway?"

"Got to at least check the traps. Still lookin' for that daddy possum."

[*]

Carol sat with Rick and Michonne on the porch of the Big Cabin, took a small bite of a protein bar, and watched the kids playing in the snow. Wood burned softly in a copper fire pit between the rocking chairs.

Daryl and Haley rounded the corner of the cabin. Haley was laughing about something. "See you later, Coach!" she said as she waved to Daryl and headed off toward her own cabin.

"Coach?" Carol asked him as he mounted the stairs. She didn't like how friendly that girl was with Daryl. She thought maybe the young woman had a little crush on her hunting instructor, but Daryl seemed oblivious.

"Just what she calls me."

"Any luck on the possum?" she asked.

"Nah. Snares empty. One walker in the walker trap. Didn't catch nothin' a'tall."

Carol held out the remaining half of her protein bar to him, and he shook his head.

"It's lunch," she said. "It's all we have left. We don't get our weekly rations until the morning."

"Give it to Soph."

"Sophia ate one of these already, and Patrick also gave her a Slim Jim from his rations."

"Hell's Patrick givin' her Slim Jims for?"

"Because he's a nice boy." Carol held out the protein bar again. "So have half of mine."

"Ain't hungry. Havin' a smoke for lunch." He fished one out of the pocket of his black leather jacket and lit up. He walked a few feet away from the rocking chairs, blew the smoke out over the railing, and eyed Patrick as he went sledding by the Big Cabin on a red plastic toboggan, next to Sophia who was sitting with Meghan between her legs on an a wooden sled. They sled all the way down to Cabin 4, where they veered into the long driveway to ease themselves to a slow roll before thudding gently against the garage door. Carl Grimes passed by the cabin next, with Andre between his legs.

"Think they're safe doing this?" Michonne asked.

"It's sledding!" Rick exclaimed. "Turn off the helicopter and let them be kids."

"I'm talking about _walkers_ ," Michonne told him slowly, as though she might be speaking to an idiot, but with a hint of affection in her voice.

"There are plenty of armed people up and about," Rick assured her. A team of ten, led by Abraham, was working on preparing more materials for the fence near the park, which was where the kids started their sledding. Roscoe and Eugene were busy clearing the snow off the panels in the solar bay. Rosita was patrolling the unfenced portion of the perimeter. "And the fence is completed on both sides all the way to Cabin 3. Besides, we can mostly see them from here."

Just then, Jody sledded by the Big Cabin. He tried to pull up his sled by the handles to do some kind of jump, but he flipped over instead, and wiped out right in front of the Big Cabin. He spilled onto the snow just as Beth came out on the porch. Jody stood and dusted himself off. "Want to go for a ride?" he asked her. "Share my sled?"

Beth glanced up the road toward the park, where Zach was manning the watchtower. "Okay, but keep your hands in a respectful place," she warned him.

"I'm a total gentleman," Jody insisted.

"That's not what I've heard," Beth said. "Zach says you're always staring at women's butts."

"It's cute the way you say _butts,"_ Jody replied. _"_ And Zach's just jealous of me, because I can outrun, outjump, and outclimb him."

Beth walked past Daryl down the stairs. " _One_ time," she agreed. "Because I haven't done this since I was seven. It never snows this much in Georgia."

Beth settled in between Jody's legs and the teenager pushed off against the earth with his gloved hands. They went sailing down the rest of the way.

Rick stood from his rocking chair, leaned over the rail, and watched them go down. "Hey, Daryl, if Beth's not too cool to do it..." He grinned.

"Hell no. Ain't sleddin' less'n Soph asks me to."

"She's sledding with Meghan," Rick told him. "But there are two more sleds. Classic wooden ones. Right there." He pointed to the sleds leaned against the lattice of the porch.

"Nah."

"Bet you couldn't beat me," Rick challenged him.

"Sure I could," Daryl said. "Busy smokin'."

"Chicken."

Daryl stubbed out his cigarette on the rail and clamored down the stairs to seize the sled.

"Oh, Good Lord," Carol muttered.

Michonne chuckled.

Daryl and Rick jogged with the sleds up to the playground and then raced each other stomach down, intermittently trying to bump each other off the road and into the perimeter fence where it began at Cabin 3.

"Someone's going to get hurt," Michonne said as she and Carol watched.

"And they still won't learn," Carol replied.

"Boys," Michonne muttered.

They both laughed.

Daryl ended up with a small slash below his ear and a splinter in his cheek from being rammed into the fence, while Rick bruised his forearm from slamming into him. Neither man could agree who'd won that last race.

[*]

At the communal dinner that night, Daryl wolfed down his rice and beans like a man starved. Later, when he and Carol sat on the couch before their private, roaring fireplace, Daryl tapped the injury beneath his ear and asked, "Ain't ya gonna kiss it?"

"You don't get kissed for self-inflicted wounds," she told him.

"Rick inflicted it."

Carol chuckled. "Oh fine." She leaned in and kissed the mark. "Haley's pretty, isn't she?"

"What?"

"Your apprentice."

"Guess," he muttered.

"I think she has a crush on you."

"Haley? Hell no. I'm old enough to be her father."

"Maybe if you had her when you were fourteen." Daryl was a good five years younger than her, and she probably looked five years older than she was, after the way Ed had worn her down, and her hair had grayed so early. She sighed, leaned back, and sipped her tea. "Some young women like older men, especially experienced, competent older men who do manly man type stuff."

Daryl blinked in puzzlement. "Haley's got a crush on Zach."

"Maybe Zach's just her back-up when she realizes she can't wheedle you from me." She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye.

"Hell you talkin' 'bout? Haley as soon as look at me as a grizzly bear. 'Sides, I'm _married_."

 _Married._ And that was final in his mind. Carol felt a little silly for fishing for reassurance. She settled her head on his shoulder. "Tomorrow our daughter becomes a teenager."

"Don't want to hear it," Daryl grumbled.


	76. Sophia's Surprise Party

Pieces of printer paper lay strewn across the kitchen table, along with stencils, markers, and tape. Now that Sophia was sound asleep, Carol was making her birthday banner. She desperately wanted Sophia's party to go well tomorrow, not just to distinguish it from the Christmas holiday that would follow a few days later, but because it would be Sophia's first real birthday party with friends.

Carol had never hosted birthday parties before for fear of what scene Ed might cause. Sophia's birthdays were always family affairs, and while some of them went smoothly enough, at least one had ended with Ed swiping the cake onto the floor and Sophia in tears. This was Carol's chance to give her daughter the party she deserved.

The kitchen door creaked open. Daryl had gone out onto the back porch for a smoke. He always took the longest time to smoke. She thought maybe he really just needed to be alone sometimes. He locked the door, propped his crossbow in the corner, and came over to lean back against the counter nearest the table. "Hell ya doin'?"

"I'm making a banner for Sophia's party tomorrow."

"Thought ya was gonna let the kids do that. Meghan and Andre."

"Well, they'll embellish it tomorrow. But I want it to be _legible_. Do you think I wrapped that okay?" She nodded to the package on the counter, which contained the gloves she'd knitted and wrapped neatly in the solid, shiny red paper she'd found in the attic – just enough to wrap two gifts. "I wrapped yours, too." Daryl had been holding back a necklace from the gift shop.

"She ain't gonna care how it's wrapped. Whatchaya so worked up 'bout?"

"I want her party to be perfect."

"Ain't nothin' perfect. But it'll be great. Soph's gonna _love_ it."

"I made the pie crust already, but I need to get the strawberry pie together." She was using the pancake toppings and whipped cream they'd snagged from the diner. "It's not going to be very big. It might serve eight. And we're inviting eleven people. Plus the three of us." All of the kids were coming (Andre, Meghan, Carl, Patrick, and Jody, whom Carol still classified with the kids) as well as Beth, Zach, Haley, Rick, Michonne, and "Uncle Roscoe," as Sophia had taken to calling him.

Daryl shrugged. "So adults don't get the pie."

"But after the rations you gave up for it, _you_ should get a piece."

"Don't need it. Yer gonna make _everyone_ apple pie for Christmas, yeah?"

Carol smiled. "You're a good father, Daryl. A really good daddy." Daryl looked down at his boots. It was too much for him, her compliment. She knew that, so she continued, "I'm going to need an hour to get everything ready in the cabin after dinner and get everyone in place. You'll keep her busy?"

He nodded. He went and got himself a glass of water from the faucet, drank it down, and then came back to look at her work.

"How many walkers did the watch kill tonight?" she asked.

He leaned back against the nearby counter again. "Three. All comin' out the west side where the fence ain't yet done. Two more got caught up on the west fence on the part as _is_ done, so them pike's workin'. Foot patrol took care of those. Killed 'em and peeled 'em off."

Carol taped a B and an I together. "Why don't you suppose any ever come out of the east woods?"

"More natural barriers that way. Got the stream 'tween us and most of the forest they'd be migratin' through. And they's comin' from Dalton. That's west. Closest city east is Cleveland. Had less n' four thousand to start with."

"You have so many facts in your head. It's impressive."

Again, he looked at his boots. "'S 'cause I moved 'round for work so damn much. 'Cause I couldn't keep a damn job."

She was going to have to slowly train him to accept compliments. "No, it's because you have a steel trap mind. You remember every detail."

He raised his head slightly and peered at her through his bangs. They were getting long. It was kind of cute at the moment, but she'd have to give him a haircut eventually. It couldn't be easy to see through that mess, and she liked looking at his eyes. "You uh…" he said and trailed off.

"I uh what?"

"Maybe wanna?"

"Fool around?"

"Mhmhm."

"As soon as I'm done with this."

He nodded, pushed off the counter, and went to the bathroom to wash up.

Carol felt bad about withholding sex from him, but she couldn't risk pregnancy. At her age, the odds of pregnancy were low, but if she _did_ get pregnant, the odds that the baby would die in her womb were higher. She couldn't bear the thought of going through what Lori had gone through, even if Dr. S. would help her survive it. The memory of Lori's undead babies still haunted her; she couldn't imagine living with the memory of her _own._

If Daryl was still upset about her no-real-sex rule, though, he didn't show it. That night, he just kept telling her how "damn good" her touch was, and then asked if "ya maybe wanna kiss it?" which was as close as he got to _directly_ asking for a blow job. She urged him into a sitting position on the edge of the bed and threw a pillow on the ground. As she slid to her knees before him, he put one hand on the back of her head, and the other on a breast, and told her, "Ah yeah...That's a good girl."

When it was her turn, he spent a long time between her legs, and by the time she was shuddering, he was hard again, so she finished him off the second time with her hand as he moaned her name into her neck. They lay silent for a while after, Carol's fingertips fluttering over his spine and tenderly outlining his old scars, one by one. It was amazing to her that he let her do this now, that he actually seemed to like it, as if she was erasing each wound she traced. His breath fell hot and fast on her cheek and eventually grew level.

"Think we better clean up," she said.

"Mhmmm."

They did, sneaking one by one to the bathroom, and then Carol had to change the sheets. Daryl crawled into the fresh ones and fell instantly asleep, almost before she could get in with him. But Carol herself lay awake watching the starlight dance across the exposed wood beams above. Eventually, she slid out of bed and went to the kitchen, where she cut up pieces of colored paper into confetti.

[*]

Everyone told Sophia "Happy Birthday!" at second dinner shift and Carol teased her by saying she could have an extra portion of brussel sprouts, to which she answered a firm "No thank you!" After she'd helped with the dishes, Daryl asked Sophia to go down to Cabin 3 with him to show him what she'd been learning on the piano.

"Where's Uncle Roscoe?" Sophia asked after she'd played her first song.

"Dunno," Daryl lied, although he knew Roscoe was in their cabin helping to prepare for the party.

Sophia turned a page of the music book. "Can I have hot chocolate tonight? Since it's my birthday?"

"We'll ask yer mama."

"It _is_ my birthday," she insisted and went back to playing. She obviously wasn't expecting a party or a pie or even gifts.

As they walked back home, construction on the fence was continuing, and Darlene, who was on foot patrol, picked off a solitary walker emerging from the woods near the unfinished western side. "Happy Birthday!" she called to Sophia as she chambered another round.

"Thanks!" Sophia called back.

A chorus of "Happy Birthdays" went up from the construction workers, too. When they were on the porch to their cabin, Daryl stepped aside and pretended he had to tie his laces so Sophia would be the one to open the front door. When she did, Carl, Andre, Meghan, and Patrick yelled "Surprise!" and threw handfuls of a cut-up colored paper confetti in her face.

Sophia was surprised all right. She went straight for the knife Daryl had given her, and which she always wore clipped to her waistband. Her hand curled around it before she realized what was really happening, at which point she laughed and let go, but Daryl felt pride in her self-defensive reaction.

The Happy Birthday banner sign hung from strings tied to the rafters in the center of the living room. It looked like Andre and Meghan had dumped two bottles of silver glitter and three bottles of gold on the thing.

When Carol brought out the strawberry pie, it had a sparkler rising out of an inch of whip cream. "I couldn't any find birthday candles," she explained. "But these were in the holiday box in the attic."

"Even better than a candle," Sophia said, though she didn't dare try to blow it out. It threw off its last spark just as the guests rounded out the Happy Birthday song. Sophia declared that the eight youngest people at the party should be the ones to get the eight slices of pie – Andre, Meghan, Carl, her, Patrick, Jody, Beth, and Zach.

"You can have my slice." Zach set his pie down in front of Haley. "Since you're the next youngest, and I don't need the extra sugar." He patted his stomach, where his old college beer gut had faded away into a now taut abdomen.

Beth saw this, narrowed her eyes, and then put on a fake smile. "Well you can have a bite of mine, Zach, sweetie." She fed him a bite with her fork and then kissed the taste of it off his lips, deliberately, in front of Haley, as though marking her territory. Haley only appeared amused.

When Zach collected and cleared the plates and forks to the kitchen sink, Daryl followed him and leaned back against the counter. "Bird in hand's worth two in the bush."

"What?" Zach asked.

Daryl wasn't the type to give relationship advice, or to care what other people did with their lives, but he'd felt guiltily protective of Beth ever since he'd accidentally led Negan to the Greene family farm. "Ya heard me. Just some friendly advice. Don't be a dumb ass." He pushed off the counter and returned to the living room, where Sophia was starting to open gifts.

Zach left the dishes in the sink and followed him.

Andre gave Sophia a card he'd made on construction paper, with a sloppy birthday cake on the front. He'd printed big, uneven letters inside that spelled: D R E

"What's that?" Rick asked.

"It's his signature," Michonne told him.

"Kid's brilliant," Rick replied. "I couldn't write until I was five."

Carl Grimes gave Sophia a can of orange soda.

"Very generous of him," Carol whispered to Daryl. "The kids only get one soda a week."

Daryl grunted.

Patrick presented Sophia with an extra chess set he'd found in his cabin along with three handmade coupons: _Good for a one-hour-long chess lesson_.

"Think that's more a gift to _him_ than to her," Daryl muttered.

Jody gave Sophia three DVDs he'd dug up in his cabin. "All PG-13, kid."

Zach gave her an extra box of ammo for her .22, out of his own rations. "I promise, we'll get on the range together again, and soon you'll be shooting really tight groups."

Beth gave her a journal with a tiny lock and key attached to it. The first several pages were ripped out, because they'd been written in. "You need something private to pour your thoughts into at this age. I remember."

"Ooops," Haley said. "I had the same thought."

Sophia squealed as she unwrapped the brown paper bag wrapping paper from Haley's gift - three calligraphy pens and a thick, flower-covered diary with combination lock. "Where'd you find these?"

"In the desk in my room," Haley said.

Jody sat down next to Beth on the couch. "I thought yours was better. A key is way cooler than a combination lock."

Zach eyed him warily, like it had suddenly occurred to him, for the first time, that he might not be the only one capable of a wandering eye.

Roscoe sang Sophia the special birthday song he'd written just for her, and she asked him if he'd teach it to her on piano. "Sure thing, little darlin'," he said.

Sophia declared Daryl's necklace to be more beautiful than her dolphin pendant, and when she tried on Carol's gloves, she clapped her hands together and then hugged her mother. "They're so pretty!"

"Not uncool?" Carol asked.

"What's uncool about awesome rainbow gloves?"

They plugged the 24" TV and DVD player into one of the portable electric generators and had a movie night, complete with microwave popcorn.

People sat on the floor, couch, and arm chairs, crowding into the small living room. Sophia selected _Men in Black_ from among the DVDs Jody had given her. Daryl laughed his way on-and-off through the whole thing. It seemed to surprise the entire cabin every time he guffawed, though he didn't know what was so shocking about it. The movie was damn funny, after all.

Carol served everyone ice tea, but Sophia drank her orange soda, allowing Patrick one sip from the can.

"Ain't that unsanitary?" Daryl asked.

" _You're_ worried about germs?" Carol replied with a raised eyebrow.

While Daryl was washing the dishes to give Carol a much deserved break, Haley came in with a plate. She brushed his shoulder as she lay it in the sink. Normally, he wouldn't have thought anything of it, but after what Carol said, it put his hair on edge and he stepped aside. Carol couldn't be right, could she? Haley couldn't possibly be flirting with _him_?

"Great party," she said.

"Mhmhm." Daryl scrubbed a plate.

"So I heard you warning Zach not to mess up with Beth. Is that because you don't like him coming on to me?"

"Uh…" _What?_

She smiled and patted his shoulder. "See you in the morning, Coach."

Daryl put the plate in the drying rack and was about to switch off the water when Carol slid another plate in the sink. "Still think I'm imagining things?" she asked.

Daryl scrubbed the plate. "Don't make no damn sense," he muttered.

"You're a better-looking man than you imagine. And men aren't exactly a dime a dozen in this world." She rested a hand on the small of his back. "Would you do me a favor and draw a clear line with her?"

"Thought the line was clear. We's _married._ "

"Well…" Carol rests a head on his shoulder. "She probably thinks you're with me for the same reason Abraham said he was with Rosita." She says it quietly, because there's the tiniest part of her that sometimes fears it's true…despite all the confidence she's gained these past few months, Ed's niggling voice – his instance that she wasn't good enough and never could be good enough – still haunts her.

"Hell would she think that for?" Daryl exclaims. "Yer pretty, smart, sweet. Yer a good mama. Can sew. Best damn cook in this camp! Hell else could a man want?"

Carol smiled. "I'll I'm saying is you might have to make the line clearer." She turned and kissed his shoulder and vanished.

[*]

After the party, Roscoe stayed to help clean up the stray pieces of confetti, while Sophia, exhausted from the fun, went straight to bed. Daryl took out the trash, which Patrick would be collecting from all the cabins and burning tomorrow morning, and then went to the back porch to smoke.

He was halfway to the stub when Roscoe slipped out the door and joined him. "Great party," he said. "Your wife knows how to throw 'em."

"Mhm," Daryl agreed, though he was glad his cabin was empty of people again. He hoped Carol didn't do that sort of thing too often.

"I invited Rosy to come with me, but she's on watch."

"How's she like ya callin' her Rosy?"

"She hates it," Roscoe said.

"Y'all still fuckin'?" Only after Daryl asked it did he realize it might not be the most diplomatic question.

"For the time being. But she's only affectionate in public when Abraham's nearby."

"Mhm." Daryl had noticed that.

"Sooner or later she's got to realize it's never going to upset him."

"Mhm."

Roscoe took off his hat and scratched his head. "So I'm enjoying it while it lasts."

"Ya ain't worried 'bout…I mean…Maggie got knocked up good."

"Oh, I got the old snip snip a couple years ago."

Daryl winced instinctively. "Hell for?"

"Soon as I signed that record deal, the one that never got produced, two women crawled out of the woodwork and claimed I was their baby daddy. First one, I didn't even get to third base with. The second, we had a thing on and off, but I wasn't the father. Thank God for paternity tests. Anyhow, after that, I decided I'd better do a little preventative work before I got famous."

"Damn," Daryl muttered. "Kind of drastic, ain't it?"

"Well, I say it's good for me _now_. Rumor is ever since Maggie got pregnant, the condoms ain't disappearing so fast from the clinic. Seems all the women folk are holding out on their men."

Daryl grunted.

"You too, huh? Bet you wish you had the snip-snip now."

"Hell no." Daryl shifted uncomfortably.

Roscoe laughed.

They stood in silence, looking at the stars in the clear night sky and listening to the sounds of hammering in the park as construction on the fence continued late into the night. Two gunshots rang out from the watchtower, but silence followed, so Daryl's muscles relaxed. A couple of walkers, no doubt, had stumbled into the camp. "Better batten down them shutters," he muttered as he flicked the dead butt of his cigarette over the porch rail.

[*]

By mid-morning the next day, the perimeter fence was completed, and not a moment too soon. While on foot patrol that afternoon, Rosita found four walkers caught on the defensive pikes on the west side, one in the back, and two in the front. She took an ATV outside the gates by herself and drove around the perimeter to kill and remove the thrashing creatures.

When Roscoe found out, he approached the Council during its evening meeting and said, "Probably ought to have a _group_ of people to do that. You know. Safety in numbers."

Thus the "cleaning team" was created – consisting of Rosita, Morgan, Glenn, and Michonne. They would do a perimeter sweep every afternoon to kill and clean off anything caught up in the fence.

As Daryl hunted with Haley, he began to talk more – about Carol. "My wife" _this_ and "my wife" _that_ fell daily from his lips. Haley took the hint and became less flirtatious. As a consequence, she also concentrated more on her hunting and became a better hunter.

The Council ordered construction to begin on four shooting stands on each side of the fence. Abraham positioned the two Army trucks he had salvaged from Woodbury just inside the front and rear gates and loaded the belts of the machine guns that were mounted on them. They would be ready to roll out and plow down a small herd of walkers – or invading men.


	77. A Magical Christmas

Greg yanked on the chain around the front tire to make sure it was secure. He patted the hood of the pick-up. "You're ready to rock and roll."

Daryl climbed into the driver's seat and Rick slid in next to him. T-Dog joined Glenn in the extended cab. They drove the few yards over to the front gate, and Daryl idled the pick-up. Darlene, who was on foot patrol, stopped walking.

"Open that gate for us would ya?" Daryl asked out the window.

Darlene peered into the truck. "Where y'all going? The Council didn't approve a supply run. "

"Ain't leavin' the mountain," Daryl said.

"We're not even going past the bend," Rick told her. "We won't leave any tracks that are visible from the highway."

"We're just doing a little Christmas shopping in some of the lower cabins," Glenn said.

The cabins had, at the start, been cleared of all food, oil, matches, batteries, and medicines, but there would still be gifts to be found.

"Ain't that just like men. To wait until _Christmas Eve_." Darlene shook her head. "You better get me something good, T-baby."

[*]

T-Dog stabbed a solitary walker that was bumping against the side of the cabin. "Damn, Glenn," he said while he wiped his knife clean and sheathed it, "why'd you tell Darlene we were Christmas shopping? I wanted to surprise her!"

"What was I supposed to tell her?"

"Tell her we were going to get all the winter coats and hats and gloves, in case somebody needs more."

"We should do that, by the way." Rick opened the door and stepped inside.

Daryl went straight for the entertainment center. For Sophia, he filled his backpack with any DVD that wasn't rated R. Then he scanned the CD rack for classical music, because Carol had once told him she liked Beethoven. He found Bach and Mozart and took both, but he didn't know what to get his little girl. "Ain't got no idea what Soph likes," he muttered.

Rick pulled out three Beatles CDs. "Giver her the classic boy band."

Daryl took the CDs and slid them in his pack.

T-Dog came out of one of the rooms with his hand open. An engagement ring and two wedding bands sat in his large palm. "I'm thinking I should officially pop the question," he said. "Think Darlene will say yes?"

Glenn peered at his palm. "No fair. You found _real_ rings. Where?"

"Under the underwear in the top drawer of the tall dresser."

" _I_ should get first dibs," Glenn insisted. "My wife's _pregnant_."

"You _have_ wedding rings," T-Dog told him.

"Yeah, crap rings I got from the gift shop! Although at least ours aren't as bad as that one Daryl got Carol."

"She loves that ring!" Daryl barked.

"She loves _you_ , man," Rick said. "She doesn't love the _ring_."

"She likes it," Daryl insisted.

"That ring," Glenn said, "it's like something you get out of one of those machines where you put in a quarter and crank the knob." Daryl narrowed his eyes at Glenn, who took a step back. "Sorry. Just saying."

They went on to find Christmas decorations in the attic, which Rick claimed for his cabin, and three unopened boxes of candy canes shoved in with them. Those would go to the pantry, except for the few Rick and Daryl pilfered for their kids' stockings. Daryl took another, opened it, and popped the curve of the staff into his mouth.

Rick raised an eyebrow at him.

"Ain't an official supply run," he said. "Only got to share fifty percent of edibles."

T-Dog and Glenn immediately snagged a candy cane. Rick shrugged and took one himself.

They moved on and found two walkers creeping around outside the next cabin. The candy cane dangled from Daryl's mouth like an over-sized toothpick as he used both hands to shoot them with his crossbow.

Inside the cabin, Daryl scored a set of china for Carol, complete with a little tea pot, saucers, and tea cups. He also found a box full of wrapping paper, bows, and ribbons. "Hell yeah. Gonna wrap some shit up!"

"Uh….Daryl?" Glenn said. "That's bar mitzvah paper."

"So?" Daryl grunted. "Jesus was a Jew. And it's his goddamn birthday."

In the next cabin, Rick found more wrapping paper ("It's a Girl!"), and Daryl snagged a painting of horses he thought Sophia might like. He also collected two watches, three bracelets, four necklaces, and several books for his girls.

When Daryl cranked the pick-up to a stop at the next cabin down, Rick said, "This is the one that had all of those kids." He swallowed, as if trying to swallow down the memory of slaying child walkers.

Once inside, Daryl and Rick fought over a Sony PlayStation 2 and ten video games.

"Carl's a _boy._ He'll appreciate it more than Sophia," Rick argued. "And I've got Andre, too. He'll want to play in a year or two. Come on, brother, let me have it. Sophia can come down to our cabin and play."

"Fine," Daryl relented. "But if ya drain yer generator too early, ya just got to go without for a day."

"I know the power usage rules."

"And I get all _five_ of those board games we found."

"Y'all already have Battleship," Rick reminded him.

"Fine, the other four."

Daryl got Sophia a dirt bike, soccer ball, jump rope, four jig saw puzzles, a Frisbee, an Etch-A-Sketch, pens, pencils, drawing pads, and a leather jacket, which was a bit big, but she'd grow into it.

Rick snagged Carl a dirt bike and a skateboard and got Andre a Big Wheel.

T-Dog got Darlene a bunch of Barry White and Marvin Gaye CDs as well as a portable CD player. "Mood music," he said.

Glenn rounded up a lot of stuff for the baby, which was in storage in the attic, probably because the youngest child was grown: bibs, bottles, baby clothes, rattles, and even a bassinet. "There was maternity lingerie up there, too," Glenn said.

"Good luck with that," Rick told him.

The bed of the pick-up was overflowing as they made their way back up the hill.

[*]

Sophia and Carol were at the Big Cabin cooking when they got back, so Daryl hid all the loot in the shed. That night, once Carol was asleep, he snuck out of bed and did some sloppy gift wrapping by the light of an oil lantern. Then he went inside, covered the space beneath the tree, and stuffed the stockings.

He saw that his own stocking seemed thicker than it had been this morning. He squeezed the toe and felt a childish surge of excitement to discover there was something inside.

[*]

Carol awoke to the sound of Sophia squealing in the living room. As she pulled herself out of bed, Daryl was already standing and pulling on his pants. He threw a long-sleeve shirt, buttons open, over his muscle shirt and began to paddle out into the living room in bare feet. Carol slid into a warm robe, pushed her bare feet into her slippers, clicked off the space heater, and followed.

Her mouth dropped open when she saw the sea of wrapped presents beneath the tree. The wrapping paper was overlapped in parts, bunched in others, uneven, and there was an excess of tape that made her smile.

Sophia was already taking her stocking down from the fireplace, crying, "It's full!"

"Hold on, hold on," Carol said. "Let me make the coffee first. And let your daddy light the fire. It's cold."

[*]

Carol watched Daryl tear through his stocking like…well, like a kid on Christmas morning. He didn't seem to care what was in it. He was just excited _something_ was in it.

Carol had knitted him some fingerless gloves because he'd complained of regular gloves being too hard to manage when he was smoking or loading. He wore them while he unpacked the rest of his stocking. She had also shoved four packages of cigarettes in there, and he said, "Aw yeah!" each time he drew one out. (Michonne had collected them for her while cleaning walkers from the fence.) From Roscoe's cabin, with his permission, Carol had taken two Guns & Ammo magazines, rolled them up, and shoved them in the stocking. She'd also put in four honey straws she'd been holding back for the tea. Sophia had crafted Daryl a stick figurine out of wine corks, which he promptly displayed proudly on the mantle. The girl had also made him a Christmas card, which took up the spot opposite the wine cork figurine.

Carol wondered where Daryl had gotten all the candy he'd put in their stocking - gum, mints, Tic Tacs and even candy canes. She hadn't been expecting presents, but he'd gotten her books, CDs, yarn, thread, and even china. None of that, though, held a candle to the sprawling loot he'd wrapped for Sophia.

Now, paper lay strewn all over the living room floor. Sophia was thrilled with her gifts, and anxious to use on in particular. "Can I ride the bike now?" she pleaded.

"It's still pretty slushy out there," Carol said.

"Nah, it's mostly melted," Daryl insisted.

"You watch her slip and slide and fall then," Carol said. "I'll stay and clean up the paper."

As he was rising to get his boots on, Carol grabbed him by the arm and whispered, "Thank you."

"Liked yer gifts?"

"I loved it all. You _made_ Sophia's Christmas." She kissed his cheek.

[*]

Carol spent several hours cooking for the camp, and they had an early Christmas feast, around three in the afternoon, in the park. They lit a bonfire and dragged picnic tables together to form an outdoor banquet hall. There was no longer any trace of snow or slush and the weather had warmed to fifty-five degrees, so it wasn't very Christmas-like, but it was better weather for an outdoor feast. There was venison steak, mashed potatoes, green beans, and Carol's apple pie – enough for _everyone_ this time.

Daryl kept humming while he ate. When Carol giggled, he asked, "What?"

"You don't hear yourself, do you? You're humming."

"'S that damn good."

Michonne climbed to the top of the slide and from that perch announced, "Party in the Big Cabin tonight! 7:30 PM. And since it's Christmas, the Council has voted that anyone age seventeen or older can have two units of alcohol tonight!"

"Here! Here!" shouted Mateo.

Jody raised his hand. "Uh…what if you're sixteen and ten months?"

"It's Christmas!" Abraham shouted, wrapping his arm around Sasha's waist. "Let the boy drink! It'll put hair on his chest."

[*]

Daryl leaned in the doorway of the master bedroom while Sophia threw herself stomach down on the bed. The mattress bounced and Carol snorted awake, looking confused. She'd taken a good, long nap after dinner.

"Party time!" Sophia cried. "Wake up! And tell Dad he _has_ to go."

Carol dragged herself out of bed. When she reached the door, she rested her head on Daryl's chest like she wanted to fall back to sleep again. "You have to go," she told him.

"Hate parties."

"Oh hush. You can hide out on the back porch if you have to."

Sophia walked a few feet ahead of them when they headed to the Big Cabin. Daryl watched and could see that her limp was almost gone. Carol slid her hand into his. He could feel her ring pressing against his palm. "Get ya a better one," he said.

"A better what?"

"Ring. Sorry. Didn't know it sucked."

"No!" She slid her hand out of his and turned the ring on her finger. "I love my ring."

"Nah, ya don't. Rick and Glenn…they's right. It's like one of them toy rings. Get ya a better one."

"I don't want a better one, Daryl. I want _this_ one."

"Why?"

" _Because_. This is the _best_ one. This one came from your heart. And every time I look at it, I think of this beautiful chance I've been given to start life over with you, to be happy and whole again, like I was when I was just a little girl. I would have squealed over a ring like this back then."

Daryl looked away, because he was pretty sure there was something stuck in his eye. He felt her hand slide back into his. He squeezed it until the ring pressed into his flesh and left a faint pattern on his skin.

[*]

"Meeeeeeery Christmas!" Rick shouted as he opened the front door. "Come on in. Christmas cookies are in the kitchen."

"Christmas cookies?" Sophia asked with wide eyes before she bolted straight for the kitchen.

"Carl and Andre and Michonne baked them yesterday," Rick told Sophia's retreating back. He turned and smiled at Carol. "With Council permission for the extra rations, of course."

Michonne drew up to the doorway. "Bar's in the study," she said.

"Know where I'm goin'." Daryl eased past Carol, strode through the crowded living room, ignoring the calls of "Hey, Daryl!," and made his way down the hall to the study.

Tara nodded to Daryl as she exited the study with a beer in her hand. "Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas," he echoed.

"Have you seen Haley?"

"Nah. Why?" Daryl asked.

"Just wanted to hang with her. She's probably not here yet." Tara walked on.

Maggie stood serving behind the desk of the study, which had been covered with wine glasses, pint glasses, bottles of booze, and three ice buckets chilling cold drinks, from beer to soda. "What can I get you?"

"Bud's fine," Daryl said.

"Oh, come on. We have good beer, too. There was a bunch in that gas station."

"Nah. I ain't got fancy tastes. Let someone else enjoy it. Just give me the Bud."

"Suit yourself." Maggie pulled one out of a bucket of ice, popped the cap for him, and said, "I don't suppose you need it in a pint glass?"

"Hell no." He took it from her hand and enjoyed a single, slow sip from the bottle.

Maggie picked up a pencil and scrolled down a list on a clipboard. Next to his name, she noted, _1 bottle, Bud_. "It's for inventory purposes," she explained.

"I'll have whiskey," said Darlene as she drew up beside Daryl. When Maggie poured it for her, Darlene raised the glass. "In honor of Bob, who died for pilfering this." She clanged Daryl's beer and sipped before looking back at Maggie. "Can I get a beer for my T-baby, too, while I'm here? The Dos Equis."

"Guess I best get a wine for Carol," Daryl said.

"What kind?" Maggie asked.

"Red."

"What _kind_ of red?" Maggie asked.

"Uh…There's different kinds?"

"You better just let her get it herself," Darlene advised him as she took the beer Maggie handed her and disappeared.

Beth and Zach drew up to the bar the moment Darlene vanished. "I've never had alcohol before," Beth admitted.

"Well then you should start with this." Zach pointed to the peach schnapps, which had been found in one of the cabins during the initial round-up.

"Nah!" Daryl cried. "Ain't gonna have her first drink be no damn peach schnapps! Give her the moonshine Eugene made."

"Daryl," Maggie insisted. "Nobody has _moonshine_ as their first drink."

"I did."

"How old were you?" Beth asked in a joking tone. "Twelve?"

"Ten."

"Oh."

Maggie unscrewed the top of the mason jar of moonshine Eugene had contributed to the pantry yesterday and held it to her sister's nose, asking, "Is this what you want?"

"Ewwww!" Beth jerked her head back. "It smells like really strong medicine."

"How about a wine cooler?" Maggie suggested.

"That sounds good," Beth agreed. She turned to Zach, "Are you going to get one for _Haley_ , too?"

Maggie caught Daryl's eyes in shared embarrassment as she took the wine cooler out of the bucket.

"No!" Zach replied. "I told you, I am _not_ cheating on you in any way."

Daryl's mind screamed retreat, but his feet were oddly frozen in place.

"And you're one to talk," Zach continued. "The way you've been flirting with Jody. That kid's such a little prick, too!"

"I have _not_ been flirting with him," Beth insisted. "And he's not _that_ bad. He's just a typically, horny teenage boy."

Daryl's feet broke free, and he hurried out of the study. Zach and Beth's bickering voices were drowned in Roscoe's singing. Daryl sat down on the floor in front of Carol, who was on the couch. He leaned back against her knees, and when she started toying with his hair, he didn't pull away.

Roscoe was sitting on a barstool just to the side of the fireplace, playing his guitar and singing a hauntingly soulful version of "Oh Little Town of Bethlehem." Rosita stood slumped back against the wall by the fireplace, where she slowly sipped a shot of tequila. From beneath heavy eyelids, she shifted her vision from Sasha, who was sitting at Abraham's feet by the arm chair, to Roscoe, and then back to Sasha. When Roscoe finished, she stepped forward, put a hand on his shoulder, fluttered her fingers over the back of his neck, and looked at Abraham while she said, "That was nice. You have a sexy voice."

Sasha rolled her eyes.

"Frosty!" Andre shouted.

"Yes, sir!" Roscoe replied, and strummed his guitar once, dramatically. "I'll be taking requests all night."

Roscoe broke into Frosty the Snowman, much to the delight of a clapping Andre, who more or less sung along, picking up every third or fourth word and the chorus.

Rosita drained her shot glass and then headed for the bar.

The song grated on Daryl's nerves. He craned his neck to look up at Carol. "Want somethin' to drink?"

"Yeah. Get me a glass of red wine."

"Uh….what kind of red?"

"The dark red kind," she said.

Hell, she didn't know all the different kinds either, did she? Daryl smiled. "Sure." He handed her his beer to hold.

Haley was squeezing out the study door as Daryl entered and wished him a Merry Christmas. She stopped like she wanted a conversation, so he hastened, "Tara's lookin' for ya," and slid into line after Rosita, who was behind Karen and Jody. Jody was assuring Maggie that this would not be the first drink of his life. "I have a totally high tolerance."

"That's totally not something to brag about," Maggie told him. "That's something you get by being an alcoholic." She handed him an O'Doul's.

Jody swigged it on his way out, saying, "Good stuff. Good stuff. Strong."

Karen snorted. "I don't guess he knows it's non-alcholic," she said. "I'll take the Chardonnay." While Maggie was pouring, Karen turned to Rosita. "You were right out there. Roscoe _does_ have a sexy voice. And beautiful eyes. He's a nice man. A _good_ man."

Rosita blinked. "Yeah," she said firmly. "I _know_."

"Do you?" Karen asked. She turned back to Maggie and took the wine glass before exiting the room, leaving Rosita peering after her.

[*]

Daryl detoured through the kitchen on his way back to Carol to see if there were any cookies left. Zach and Beth seemed to have made up, because Beth was sitting sideways on his lap at the kitchen table. He had his arms around her and was being fed half a cookie. Meghan and Carl were at the table, too, dipping their cookies into glasses of milk mixed from powder. Sophia and Patrick were standing in the long, open doorway between the kitchen and dining room, sucking on candy canes.

Daryl set Carol's wine glass on the table, grabbed the second to last cookie on the plate, and had just started to savor the taste of it on his tongue when Meghan said, "You're under a mistletoe."

Daryl looked up. She apparently wasn't talking to him. He looked around and found Patrick and Sophia both looking straight up to where the plastic green leaves and red berries dangled from the dining room doorway. Daryl felt every single muscle in his body go tense.

"You _have_ to kiss," Meghan said.

Sophia smiled sheepishly, her cheeks turning a light pink, while Patrick's dimples punctuated the bright blush on his cheeks. Their eyes went everywhere except on each other.

"Yep," Beth said, "it's pretty much a law."

"Better get it over with, Patty, boy," Zach said. "It's like diving into a pool. Best to do it all at once."

Patrick swallowed so hard Daryl could see his Adam's apple bob. Then he leaned in abruptly and kissed Sophia's cheek, a quick, little peck, and pulled quickly away. He pushed his glasses up on his nose. The pink on Daryl's little girl's cheek darkened into red.

"Merry Christmas," Patrick said and stepped out of the doorway and toward the kitchen table.

"Merry Christmas," Sophia told him, but remained where she was.

Daryl felt the tension in his muscles unwind, though he wondered what kind of kiss that sneaky Patrick would have given her if he wasn't here.

"Let's go play in the game room," Meghan suggested. "On Carl's new PlayStation."

"Where's the game room?" Patrick asked.

"It's in the bedroom I share with Andre," Carl said.

"Okay," Sophia agreed.

"Whoa! Whoa!" Daryl exclaimed. "Hell's the game room doing in a _bedroom_?"

"What's wrong with games in the bedroom?" Sophia asked innocently.

Beth slid off of Zach's lap and stood. "It's okay, Daryl, really." She smiled. "The door's wide open. They moved the furniture into the corners and have two card tables set-up in there with chairs around them and board games on them. There's a TV and the game console. Eugene and Lilly and Dr. S are already in there playing cards." She took Zach's hand and tugged. "You want to play Scrabble, sweetie?"

He stood. "Sure, honey bun." He rubbed her nose with his.

"Ewww," Carl said. "Enough."

[*]

Daryl traded Carol's wine for his beer and settled at her feet again. Roscoe had moved onto "Do You Hear What I Hear," which he was singing in duet with Karen. "Did you know she could sing?" Carol bent down to ask.

"Nah."

Rosita was watching Roscoe and Karen from her perch against the wall, a mingled look of confusion and annoyance on her face.

Daryl didn't mind this song so much. He sipped his beer and relaxed against his wife's legs. He looked at the people scattered throughout the living room, heard the voices rising and falling from the game room and bar, and realized, with surprise, that none of it felt utterly foreign to him, that he was as much a part of this community as anyone else.

Carol leaned down and whispered in his ear, "Merry Christmas."

"Best damn Christmas I ever had."


	78. Sophia's Valentine

That January, the cleaning team peeled thirty-one walkers from the fence. Daryl and Haley trapped another twenty-six in the woods. The walkers were too slow to catch the animals, but they drove them deeper into hiding, and meat was scarce. The camp finished off all of the Spam and canned tuna and began to rely on beans and powdered milk for protein.

The farm land was cleared of all trees and brush. Radishes, parsnips, spinach, leeks, turnips, beets, cauliflower, and winter squash had begun to grow in the greenhouse from the seeds they'd snagged from Lowe's. Karen and Mateo also planted winter herbs in pots in their cabins – oregano, sage, and thyme.

Maggie's pregnancy proceeded well. Sophia finally beat Patrick at a game of chess, and Roscoe started teaching Carl to play guitar. The water froze in the pumps, and they had to hit the storage water for three days before Eugene discovered a safe thawing solution and they could use their faucets again.

In a double wedding in the Big Cabin, T-Dog and Darlene got "officially" hitched, along with Zach and Beth. Haley stopped talking much at all while she and Daryl hunted. She began to listen and learn the sounds of the forest. After three days of waiting on-and-off in ghillie suits near a pile of bait, during which the last of January faded into February, the hunters gave up on the idea of catching a deer.

"Need meat," Daryl muttered now as he studied the faint dusting of snow on the forest ground.

"Tracks," said Haley, pointing. Her shoulders fell. "Just walkers."

"Damn."

A roar erupted from somewhere deeper in the forest. "Is that a bear?" Haley asked. "Shouldn't it be in its den?"

"Not if walkers woke it. But we can thank 'em for findin' it for us." Daryl began to run toward the sound.

Haley followed. When they burst through the brush into a partial clearing, they found an angry, mama black bear defending its den of cubs against four walkers. The den was in a large tree cavity, and the mama bear stood on its hind feet before it, roaring at the walkers. It landed on all fours and began to tear into the undead creatures, which had no sense but to try to feed on the bear while they were being torn limb from limb.

When the bear spied Daryl and Haley, it swept a walker aside with its paw and charged.

"Oh shit oh shit!" Haley cried while she shot, quickly drew from her quiver, reloaded her compound bow, and shot again.

Daryl's first arrow lodged itself in the bear's shoulder. With three arrows now sunk in its flesh, the beast kept charging. Knowing he couldn't pull the string back in time to reload, Daryl tossed his bow and drew his hunting knife, hoping he could puncture the bear's throat when it was upon him.

Fortunately, Haley's third arrow went straight in the bear's eye and brought the beast slumping to the ground, a yard from Daryl's feet. Daryl ran forward, straddled the bear's shoulders from behind, and slit its throat to finish it. He stumbled off the bear, breathing hard, and felt a bony hand on his shoulder.

Daryl whirled and thrust his hunting knife deep into the walker's brain, yanked it back out, and immediately turned in a circle to defend himself against the others, but two had been killed by the bear, and the fourth was at that very moment being struck by Haley's arrow.

"Holy shit," Haley said. "Oh my God. Is it over?"

"Reckon." He looked over the bear. "Damn shame. Would of fed the whole camp for over a week if she didn't get bit so bad."

Haley walked over to the large tree and peered inside the hollowed-out space. "Aww…They're so cute. There's three."

"They're dinner," he said.

"The babies?"

"Ain't gonna survive without mama anyhow. And we ain't had fresh meat in days." One of the female rabbits was pregnant, but it would be another 4 to 6 days before it gave birth, and then they'd have to wait for the rabbits to grow.

"Can't we raise them?" she asked. " _Farm_ them? Like Mateo wants to do with the rabbits and possum?"

"Hell ya thinking, girl? Cain't contain bears in the backyard!"

"I guess not," Haley conceded.

"Make good meat. Like a beef stew."

"You kill them, Coach." Haley shook her head. "I can't. I just can't." She walked away from the den.

"Need to cut up this bear, too." Daryl nudged the fallen mama with the toe of his boot. "Use it as walker bait." He gathered up his crossbow, but a string had snapped loose. He cursed, slung the bow on his back, drew his hunting knife, and prowled toward the den.

[*]

Daryl brought the skinned, already sectioned meat to the kitchen of the big cabin, where Carol, Patrick, and Sophia were chopping the first crop of fresh vegetables from the greenhouse. As he laid the meat on the counter, he eyed Patrick suspiciously. When had _he_ joined the kitchen crew? One minute the kid was giving his daughter coupons for chess lessons, the next he was kissing her under the mistletoe, and now he was volunteering to _work_ with her?

Carol looked up from a parsnip and smiled. "No beans tonight! We've got meat, kids."

Sophia peered at the meat and asked, "What's that?"

"Giant North Georgian Possum," Daryl lied. "Few more pieces hanging in the smoke house."

Carol looked at him suspiciously, but she didn't question him.

"Did you get a boy possum yet?" Sophia asked. "For the farm?"

"Nah. Maybe next time."

That night, as Sophia dipped her spoon into the hearty stew Carol had prepared for the camp, she said, "This is the best possum _I_ ever ate!"

"Yer mama's a great cook," Daryl told her.

[*]

Carol sipped her tea and watched the fire pop. Sophia was reading in bed and would probably fall asleep doing so.

Daryl came inside and locked the front door. He'd been in the garage, where his bow press was located, restringing and tuning his crossbow. Carol was glad, for his sake, that the camp store and some of the cabins had housed archery supplies.

He set his kerosene lamp on the end table in the glow of the artificial lamp that was plugged into a portable generator and turned it off. "Soph get to bed a'ight?" he asked.

"She's reading. You can check on her and turn off her light later."

He slumped down on the couch beside her.

"Sophia's been trying to come up with a match for Haley, now that Zach's made his intentions toward Beth clear."

"Yeah?" Daryl muttered. "And who'd she pick?"

"Well, that's the thing. She couldn't think of anyone. Dr. S and Lilly have gotten together." It was hardly surprising. They were about the same age and worked together daily. "Jody's too young. Mateo, Greg, and Morgan are too old."

"Rosita ain't bothered by how old Roscoe is."

"Yeah, well, I'm not sure that's going to work out unless Rosita starts treating Roscoe better."

"Ya forgot Eugene."

"Well, Eugene's Eugene."

Daryl closed his eyes and leaned back his head.

The largest flame in the fireplace flickered and then burned steady. "It's funny, when I think about it," Carol said. "In another world, Haley would have prospects out the door, and yet someone who looks like me..." She shook her head.

Daryl's eyes flew open. "Hell ya mean, someone who looks like you?"

Ed had told her no other man would ever find her attractive so often and for so long that some corner of her soul still believed it. Daryl was with her, but _that_ wasn't _why_ he was with her. He was with her _despite_ the fact that she was the oldest and least attractive woman in this entire community.

Carol seized her empty tea cup from the coffee table and walked over to the kitchen. As she rinsed out the cup, Carol struggled to suppress the self-doubt that was rolling like a choppy wave in her stomach. She set the cup down in the sink and switched off the water, but when she tried to turn, Daryl was behind her. He had her pinned, his palms flat down on either side of the sink.

"Carol," he said, and that made her go perfectly still, because he so rarely addressed her by name. He only did it when he had something serious to say.

"Yes?" she asked, her voice catching.

His breath tickled the skin on the back of her neck. "Yer beautiful."

For a moment, those words knocked the wind out of her. It wasn't just that he'd said them, it was that he'd said them like he _meant_ them, like each of those two simple words was a deliberate truth that she'd be a complete idiot to deny.

Carol felt, suddenly, like crying, and half of a sob did escape her. Daryl wrapped his arms around her from behind. Carol melted back against her husband's chest and let him hold her up.

That night, Carol completely abandoned her no-real-sex rule. While they were kissing and petting in bed, she begged for Daryl to be inside of her, murmuring, "I want you. So much. _Please._ " Daryl didn't pause to ask if she was sure. He just lunged for the box of condoms in the nightstand.

[*]

A hungry walker, despite being caught up in the hunter's net and dangling a few feet above the ground, was still licking the blood off the bear's bone. Daryl's arrow pierced its forehead. He let Haley finish off the other two walkers trapped in the second net. It was much faster for her to reload that compound bow than it was for him to cock and reload his crossbow. With all these walkers about the woods these days, maybe he should consider a rifle. But he loved his bow. It was like a third arm to him.

While Haley recovered her arrows, cut loose the walkers, and re-set the traps as Daryl had taught her to do, he examined his animal snares. He'd caught a large squirrel in the first, but it had been feasted on by one of the walkers. The next two traps were empty. But in the third was an uninjured, male possum. It hissed at Daryl, and Daryl hissed back.

He turned to shout back at Haley. "Look at that! Finally caught ourselves a daddy possum!"

Haley, slipping her recovered arrows back into her quiver, wandered over to his side. "How can you tell from here?" She craned her neck as though trying to look all the way under the possum.

"They's bigger, the males. And they got yellow chest fur."

"I'm never going to learn all this."

"Yeah, ya will."

Later, when Daryl delivered the possum to the farm, Meghan named the creature Russell, and Mateo, as he latched the door to the new couple's cage, said, "Now go forth and multiply!"

"Come see the bunnies!" Meghan insisted. She grabbed Daryl's hand and tugged. A year ago, a little girl would never have thought of speaking to him, let alone taking his hand. It still hit him like a bolt, sometimes, to realize he belonged here, that he was trusted.

[*]

Daryl relished the quiet as the last of the setting sun faded below the tall tips of the evergreens and filtered through the open branches of the barren oaks. There wasn't much to watch for these days, with the fence in place, but a watchman's job was to make sure there were no herds gathering along the fence in any one spot. If enough walkers crowded together, the pikes couldn't spear them all, and the weight of them might eventually cause the fence to give. He was also to keep an eye out for human threats – in case any vehicles should approach either gate from the road.

His two-hour shift passed uneventfully until Roscoe came to relieve him. "I'm digging the poncho," Roscoe said as he climbed onto the platform.

Daryl had found it in the attic of one of the lower cabins, but he only cracked it out for watch. His leather jacket simply wasn't warm enough for two hours in the watchtower after sunset in February. He needed a second layer, and he didn't want some bulky winter coat like Roscoe now wore.

"Well," Roscoe announced as Daryl handed him the binoculars. "I think Rosy is my official girl now."

This announcement probably meant Roscoe expected a conversation. Daryl reached between the slit folds of his poncho to fish for a cigarette in his pants pocket. At least all the walkers meant a steady supply of smokes. Every third one seemed to have at least half a pack in its back pocket. Dalton must have been smoke city. "Yeah?" he muttered as he slid the Marlboro between his lips. He loved these fingerless gloves Carol had knitted him.

"She moved all her shit into my bedroom."

Daryl struck a match, brought it to the tobacco, and sucked two quick times. The tip of his cigarette glowed orange-red. He flicked his wrist once, and the flame of the match went out before it fluttered down, dead, onto a plank of the treehouse. "Ya asked her to move in?"

"No." Roscoe scanned the perimeter. "She just up and did it."

"Don't sound like ya wanted her to."

Roscoe let the binoculars drop around his neck. "I don't mind. She's been in my bed every other night anyhow. Might as well. Frees up a room so Haley and Karen don't have to share."

"Mhm."

"I admire Rosita. She's beautiful, and she's the most competent woman I ever met. She can do most anything. But I think she's pretty broken."

"Reckon we all is."

"Reckon you're right. It's just…" Roscoe sighed. "Rosita was never around women when she was growing up. Her mom died when she was young. She had five older brothers, and the eldest one raised them all. I think maybe she knows how to be one of the guys, and she sure as shit knows how to fuck, but she doesn't know how to be a _woman_. To a man. Tender, you know? Like Carol is with you."

"Mhm."

"And the thing is…I think maybe Karen's taken a shine to me. And Karen might treat me real nice."

"Ah."

"Think that's why Rosy moved in. To stake her claim."

"Mhm."

Roscoe shrugged. "So I figure I ought to settle for the one I'm already with. You know, a bird in hand." Roscoe leaned on the rail and looked at the slush on the ground below. "That ain't the only reason I'm sticking with her though."

"Nah?" Daryl asked, because Roscoe seemed to expect him to say something.

"Don't think Rosita's ever had anyone to love her properly," he said quietly. "And I been thinking of something my granddaddy once told me. My _mamma's_ daddy. Joe Perkins. Not _our_ granddaddy. Not Dale Dixon."

"And what he say?"

"He said, Roscoe, my boy, it's an easy thing to _be_ loved. Takes a real man to _do_ the loving."

Daryl rolled that in his mind, the way he was rolling the smoke on his tongue.

"But enough of my complicated love life. What did you do for Carol for Valentine's Day?"

A puff of smoke spurted out of Daryl's mouth. "What?"

"You _do_ know it's Valentine's Day, right?"

No. He had no idea it was Valentine's Day. Was that why Sophia had run into her bedroom with what looked like a handmade card? Who the hell was giving his little girl a handmade Valentine's Day card? Was it that chess-coupon-gifting, sneaky-mistletoe-kissing Patrick?

"So you didn't get Carol anything?"

"Need to get goin'." Daryl wedged his cigarette between his lips and hastened down the rope ladder, after which he went straight to the big cabin and knocked on the door. Michonne answered wearing a pair of red, plaid flannel pajamas.

"Ya can draw, right?" he asked her.

"I used to dabble in the arts," she said.

"Can ya make me a Valentine's Day card for Carol?"

Michonne chuckled. "Daryl Dixon. Making Valentine's Day cards." She waved him in and went to get some materials. She sketched some designs for him on the coffee table before the roaring fireplace.

Rick sat in the rocking chair reading a huge hardback novel, like some kind of old man. "You're in trouble, brother," he said with a smirk as he turned a page. "It's a little late. It's after ten at night."

Down the hall, Daryl could hear Beth crying Zach's name.

Michonne snorted. "Newlyweds," she muttered. "They don't let anyone sleep around here."

"At least T-Dog and Darlene don't live in our cabin anymore," Rick told her. "Besides, I bet we could give those kids a run for their money."

"Ewwww!" said Carl, who had just emerged from the kitchen. "Can you please not talk about that stuff around me."

"He didn't know you were there," Michonne told him.

Carl shook his head and went to the bedroom he shared with Andre.

When Michonne gave the card to Daryl, she also handed him a pen and said he better write something personal inside.

Daryl chewed on the end of the pen, leaving deep teeth marks, and muttered around it, "Like what?"

"Like why you love her," she said. "How you feel about her."

"Why and how?" Daryl asked.

" _That_ you love her," Rick said, turning a page. "Anything. Something."

Eventually, Daryl wrote _Sorry I forgot it was_ \- "How ya spell Valentine's"?" he asked Michonne. "Ent or int?" She told him, without laughing at him, too. He appreciated that. He'd always been a shit speller, ever since he could remember, even though lots of other things came easily to him. _Valentine's Day_. _Ain't cause I take you for granted. It's cause I don't know how to be romantic. But I love you. You make my life better. Hope I make you happy. Just tell me if I ain't doing stuff right. I'll try and do it better. - Daryl_

Carol was already in bed when he got home, so he left the card on her nightstand.

She must have liked it, though, because in the morning he awoke to the feel of her hand down his boxers and her warm breath tickling his ear lobe. He was completely hard, whether from a dream or her touch or mere morning wood, he didn't know. His eyelids fluttered open, and when his vision came into focus, he saw she'd already put a condom packet on the nightstand. He smiled, rolled on his back and found she'd taken off her pajama pants. The tail of her pajama top fell to her thighs. When he slid his hand up her leg and underneath the top, he found her panties were gone, too. "Hell yeah," he growled. "C'mere, sweetheart."

The sex was like a long, slow, satisfying stretch at first, but ended with a shudder that didn't completely stop for several minutes.

"You all right?" Carol asked softly as she lay at his side, one of her legs draped over one of this and her head on his shoulder. "You're shaking."

"It's just what ya do to me," he murmured. Daryl kissed the top of her head and wrapped both of his arms around her naked body until the shiver left him.

[*]

While Carol was showering, Daryl snuck into Sophia's room to look for that Valentine's Day card. The girl was already out of the cabin. She'd gone to help Karen in the greenhouse.

Daryl didn't see it on top of her desk, so he opened the long drawer, which only had pencil and pens. Then he opened the side drawer and found the card atop her journal. He plucked it up, looked inside, and read, "You're the sweetest girl I've ever met. I love the time we spend playing chess together, and I hope we can do it more often. - Patrick"

" _What_ are you doing?" Carol asked him from the open doorway as she towel dried her hair. She stood in her thick, terry cloth bathrobe and slippers.

He jumped and shoved the card back in the drawer before slamming it shut. "Did ya know Patrick's been writin' Soph love notes?"

"Daryl," she said in a scolding tone. "That's her _private_ mail. You don't go reading it. And, yes, I know he gave her a Valentine's card."

"How'd ya know?"

"Because she _talks_ to me. Because _I_ don't go rifling through her stuff."

"Mhm." He walked out of the room.

Carol, draping the towel over her shoulders, followed. "So…what _did_ it say?"

"Oh, ya'd like to know, would ya?"

She shrugged. "Just…curious."

"Said she's the sweetest girl he ever met. And he'd like to play more _chess_ with her."

Carol snorted and covered her mouth. "That's so sweet and innocent."

"Chess don't _mean_ chess."

Carol lowered her hand. "Of course it does."

"Ain't nothin' _sweet_ and _innocent_ about the thoughts of a fourteen-year-old boy, I guarantee you."

"I think Patrick's a bit of a late bloomer," Carol told him.

"Yer naïve, woman."

She laughed. "Well, whatever his thoughts, he's _well behaved_. And you better be, too. Whatever you do, don't scare that poor boy."

"Mhm." Daryl strolled to the living room and plucked up his crossbow.

"Daryl," she said in a warning tone.

"What?" He checked the tension in the string and then slid his crossbow on his back.

" _Promise_ you won't scare that poor boy."

"Ain't gonna scare no one. Just goin' huntin'."

"Well, you and Haley stay warm."

"Ain't goin' with Haley. Goin' with Patrick."

"Oh, Good Lord! Daryl!"

"What?" he asked innocently. "Boy oughtta learn."

[*]

"Patrick, hey," Daryl said. He approached the kid where he stood feeding a mouse to one of the possum in the cage in Mateo's back yard. At least the boy didn't flinch when the possum snatched and devoured the creature. That meant Patrick wasn't a total pussy. Then again, a sociopath wouldn't have flinched either. "Want ya to go huntin' with me this morning."

"Hunting?" Patrick jerked his hand back from the cage when the possum came toward his fingers. "Uh…me?"

"Yeah. Got the ATV parked out front. C'mon."

"I've never _been_ hunting before."

"First time for everythang."

"I'm really not a good shot. Shouldn't you be taking Haley?"

"Get yer rifle and get in the ATV."

Patrick swallowed. "Yes, sir."


	79. Herd!

Daryl and Patrick sat freezing their asses off on the ice-hard dirt. Patrick was wearing Haley's ghillie suit, which was a size too big for him. A pile of acorns lay several feet away beyond a bush, and they waited for the deer to take the bait.

"How long do we have to keep sitting here?" Patrick asked. He was holding his rifle tightly, like he was afraid if he let go, it would fall and go off by itself.

"Long as it takes."

"It's been an hour."

"Patience. Huntin' requires patience."

"So does chess. But it doesn't usually involve sitting in the cold." Patrick fell silent again.

A deer didn't come, but a fox did, its paws paddling and slipping over an occasional spot of ice. It sniffed the acorns, but didn't eat. Daryl whispered for the boy to shoot it. Patrick aimed his rifle, squeezed the trigger, but pulled up on the recoil. The shot missed by a good five inches. Unharmed, the fox ran. Daryl's arrow caught up with it.

"Can we even eat fox?" Patrick asked as they stood and walked over to the carcass.

"Damn tough," Daryl said. "But we'll soak it in saltwater overnight. Tenderize it. Then hang it to smoke."

"When will those rabbits be old enough to eat?"

"Summer." Daryl nodded behind him. "Walker."

Patrick whirled, shakily raised his gun, and shot, three times, but not in the head. The walker lurched backward with each hit but did not fall.

"Stop shootin'!" Daryl yelled before he strode forward and stabbed it. "Dontch ya know ya got to get the brain?" he shouted.

"Yes…Yes, sir. I just…I was…I'm not a good shot."

"Damn well better learn! It's a dangerous world. Take lessons from Zach."

"Yes, sir."

Having secured and field dressed the fox, Daryl decided to call it a day. He shucked his ghillie suit, as did Patrick, and they hiked back toward the ATV. "Good student?"

"What?"

"Said, were ya a good student? In school?"

"Yes, sir. All-A honor roll."

"Job?"

"Uh…you mean…" Patrick nervously resettled his glasses on his left ear. "Did I have a job?"

"Yeah. Job."

"I started babysitting when I turned thirteen."

" _Babysitting?_ " What the hell kind of self-respecting teenage boy _babysat_ for money?

"Yes, sir. I wanted to save money for college."

Then again, what kind of teenage boy had the foresight to save for college? Not that there was any college to save for in this world, but the ability to plan wasn't a bad thing. It showed a certain amount of self-discipline on Patrick's part.

"And like I told the Council in the interview," Patrick continued, "I worked at McDonald's. As soon as I turned fourteen. I had to get a work permit. But my uncle was the manager of the nearest one, so...he hired me. Nothing special. Just flipping burgers. Cleaning toilets."

"Ain't no shame in honest work."

"No, sir."

"Girlfriend?"

"Sir?"

Daryl came to a stop before the ATV and threw off the branches they'd used to cover it. "Ever had a girlfriend?"

"No, sir."

"Good. Too damn young for one."

He threw the fox in one bin under the seat and told Patrick to put their ghillie suits in the other. Then he climbed in and started up the vehicle. Patrick slid quickly into the passenger's seat.

Daryl drove back to the west perimeter fence, idled the ATV, and got out to open the gate. He turned the combination lock until it clicked open. He always put the combo lock on when he left to hunt, just in case there were any bad people hiding in these woods. He didn't want them sneaking in a side gate. Also, the combo lock further ensured the latch stayed shut so that no walkers could stumble into camp. There were no pikes in front of the gates, so they were the most vulnerable part of the fence.

Daryl slid the padlock in his pocket, popped free the outside latch, and pulled on the handle, but he couldn't open the gate. It was locked from the _inside._ Someone must have seen it unlocked, thought the hunters were already back, and latched it. He sighed, stepped back to the ATV, and waited for Abraham to spy them in his visual sweep from the watchtower. When the binoculars were pointed in their direction, Daryl waved and pointed to the gate.

Abraham climbed down from the tree house. Daryl slid back into the ATV and relaxed into his seat, knowing it would take the man ten minutes to walk this far.

When Abraham opened the gate, Daryl rolled the ATV in and idled.

"Catch anything good?" Abraham asked as he latched the gate shut again.

"Just a - "

His answer was drowned by a burst of gunfire from just beyond the east side of the fence – the side that rarely had walkers.

"Out, Patrick!" Abraham commanded, and the kid jumped out of the ATV so Abraham could jump in. Daryl took off full speed toward the opposite fence.

Roscoe, who had been working on the solar panels in the nearby bay, reached the fence on foot the same time they did. "Cleaning team's out there!" he yelled, drawing his handgun from his holster at his hip.

Abraham began to open the gate to run to their aid, only to discover a herd of gnashing walkers. Daryl threw his body against the wood to shut it again. Together he and Abraham pushed the gate hard enough to break off the arms of two walkers. They snapped like twigs. Roscoe latched the two locks while Daryl and Abraham held the bucking gate in place. The wood continued to rattle as the walkers tried to get in.

"Where the hell did they come from?" Abraham asked. "They weren't there ten minutes ago!"

"Must of spilled out the forest," Daryl replied. There were a lot of evergreens on that side and fewer barren oaks. There wasn't as much visibility. Anything could sneak up on you if you were preoccupied, as the cleaners must have been.

The sound of Michonne's katana slashing through necks and Morgan's staff whacking heads punctuated the gunfire outside the gates.

"Shit!" Abraham cursed. "I'm getting the closest Army truck. Then we'll open the gate and machine gun these motherfuckers!" He took off in the ATV.

Someone must have run out of ammo or been killed, because the gunfire was suddenly cut in half.

"Rosita's out there!" Roscoe cried.

The second gun ceased firing.

Roscoe and Daryl ran to the shooting stand a few yards from the gate and quickly scaled the ladder. About fifteen yards down the fence line to the left, a cluster of walkers was still trying to break its way through the closed gate. Another fifteen yards down the fence line to the right, the cleaning crew stood trapped and fighting off a herd of walkers that was still spilling out from the forest. Glenn had dropped his gun and was relying on a knife, while Rosita was using the bayonet on her rifle.

"Hey!" Roscoe shouted and fired into the herd closest to the shooting stands. "Over here!"

Some of the walkers began to peel off and head toward the stand, where they pressed into the pikes, spearing themselves as they reached their grasping hands up toward Daryl and Roscoe.

Daryl's arrows flew and slew the walkers closest to the cleaning team, giving them more space to fight, but after felling only six, he was out of arrows. The ammo in Roscoe's handgun didn't last long either.

"Fuck!" Daryl yelled.

Boots clamored onto the platform. Daryl turned to see Jody. The kid didn't even have a gun on him. How the hell did he think he was going to help?

"You asked me what parkour was?" Jody said, and then he climbed onto the top of the fence from the stand and started running down its narrow edge toward the cleaning team before leaping over the pikes and dropping to the ground just outside the surrounding herd. His presence drew off the walkers that were doubling up on Glenn, enough that Glenn could have time to stab, yank out his knife, and stab again.

Then Jody weaved through a zig-zag opening in the herd, vaulted himself up onto the tilted pikes - cutting his shirt open on the sharpened tips in the process, but barely scratching himself. He ran across the dull sides of the pikes without sliding down all the way into the fence - dodged the arms of the grasping walkers caught up on the sharpened tips - and then jumped over the head of a walker before landing on the other side of Morgan. Jody drew off the walkers doubling up on the man, giving Morgan more space to swing his staff.

Next, Jody scaled a tree, swung from one of its branches over to another tree, and then landed on his feet again in an opening in the herd behind the walkers that were doubling up on Rosita.

Daryl watched with open mouth. "Kid's fuckin' Spiderman!"

Abraham's deep voice rose from below. "Open up!"

Daryl turned to see him jerking the Army truck to a stop. He leaped out of the driver's side, strode quickly to the rear or the truck, and got in place behind the machine gun. Meanwhile, Carol spilled out of the passenger's side, AR-15 in hand, and began running toward the platform.

Daryl and Roscoe hurried down the ladder. Carol scaled it, took their place on the platform, and began firing at the herd below.

By now, Rick, Darlene, and Zach were also running toward the shooting stand with their weapons. Zach had a rifle in each hand and tossed one to Daryl before scaling the ladder to shoot beside Carol. Rick and Darlene followed him up. Four people now stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the three-person shooting stand and unleashed gunfire on the swarming herd below.

Daryl flanked Abraham's right side at the gate. Maggie, coming from Daryl didn't know where, fell in place beside him with her rifle ready. Meanwhile Tara, Greg, and T-Dog flanked Abraham's left and leveled their guns.

The gate shuddered hard. One metal latch popped loose from the weight of the walkers. To prevent the gate from further damage, and to expose the walkers to gunfire, Roscoe unlatched the second lock and jumped out of the way as the walkers plowed the gate open.

Machine gunfire echoed in the mountain amphitheater. Daryl's ears rang as he shot at the walkers that made it past the barrage from the Army truck.

Abraham continued to fire until the machine gun belt suddenly jammed.

Fortunately, Sasha was roaring up the hill with the other Army truck. Daryl and Maggie jogged backwards out of its way while continuing to shoot walkers, and Sasha squealed to a stop. Abraham leaped onto the truck and began firing its machine gun.

Daryl found himself dry firing and was about to drop his rifle for his knife when Carl extended him a full magazine. The boy was passing out ammo as the shooters emptied. Daryl dropped his clip, slid in the new one with a click, and continued firing.

Soon, the shrill ringing in his ears overpowered the popping sound of gunfire.

[*]

When the last shot was fired, and the haze of kicked-up dirt had settled, with his ears still ringing, Daryl walked over a blanket of walker bodies and through the gate to see who was still alive.

Rick burst past Daryl and embraced Michonne, who clung to him like she didn't have the strength to stand up on her own anymore. Morgan was slumped back against the fence, breathing heavily, his staff dripping with blood. Glenn jogged forward to hug Maggie, who had just emerged from the gate. "You weren't shooting in there, were you?" he asked.

"Of course I was," Maggie said as she embraced him.

"The baby!" Glenn put a hand on her stomach.

"The baby's fine. Just a little deaf, maybe."

Rosita was squatting down over something. A final walker, perhaps. But when she pulled the knife out, and stood, a single tear was sliding down her cheek. Daryl crept forward, weaved between walker bodies, and saw Jody's mangled, half-consumed body.

Rosita swallowed. "That kid gets a hero's funeral," she said. "None of us would have survived if he hadn't drawn them off."

Daryl nodded.

She looked over his shoulder. "Where's Roscoe?"

Daryl turned around. It was strange the man hadn't come out to check on Rosita. Daryl hadn't noticed him during the attack. He hadn't noticed anyone. His entire focus had been on slaying walkers. But Roscoe had already been out of bullets when he'd opened that gate and those things had streamed in. He'd been completely defenseless at that moment.

Daryl looked back at Rosita. The pupils of her eyes widened. Her nostrils flared, and her bottom lip quivered. "Roscoe!" she screamed.

Rosita ran for the open gate.


	80. Picking Up the Pieces

Rosita tore inside the gate, with Daryl on her heels. "Roscoe!" she screamed as she stood in the midst of the fallen walker corpses inside the camp. "Roscoe!"

From underneath a pile of walker bodies, a hand emerged. Daryl recognized the ring immediately – a thick, broad, silver band, with the outline of a guitar etched in black - Roscoe's rock star ring. The fingers waved one by one, like Roscoe was waving an effete hello.

Rosita started throwing bodies off of him, grunting and shoving them aside like her own life depended on it. Daryl helped.

Roscoe took a huge gasp of air when he was free. Rosita jerked him up into a sitting position and began to examine his body. She ran her hands all over his face, neck, and torso.

"Ain't bit, Rosy, darlin'," he said when he caught his breath. "There was no room to run when they poured in. So I just pulled the first one that got shot atop myself, to mask my scent. Then a bunch more dead ones fell on me right quick. I'm a bit bruised, but that's it."

Rosita let out a choked sob of relief and threw her arms around him. Roscoe blinked as if stunned by her embrace, and his eyes widened when her lips came down on his and she proceeded to kiss him, hard, in public, and not at all for Abraham's benefit.

Roscoe buried a hand in her hair and kissed back.

[*]

Eugene, with the help of Patrick and Carl, swept up the sea of spent brass, bagged it, and brought it back to his garage for reloading.

T-Dog and Glenn dug Jody's grave next to Lori's in the camp's cemetery.

A team of ten went to work using trucks to transplant the walker bodies outside the rear gate and down the dirt road to a safe spot for a controlled burning. They'd checked enough driver's licenses to know the herd was likely from Blairsiville, a small city to the east with a pre-apocalypse population of less than one thousand…and all this time they'd been worried about _Dalton_.

Lilly and Dr. S examined everyone for bite marks and found one on Greg's lower left arm. Carol's sleeves would have come in handy for the attack, if only they'd had time to grab them and put them on. The doctor gave Greg enough pain pills to knock him out and then performed an emergency amputation.

"At least I'm right handed," said Greg when Carol came by the clinic later to bring him a Gatorade from the pantry. "I can still work on the vehicles, but I'm going to need help."

"Maybe you can apprentice Sophia. I'd love her to learn the skill. With that old leg injury, she's probably not going to be a supply runner, and she does't like cooking as much as I'd hoped."

"I'd love to teach her," Greg told her.

[*]

Daryl, flanked by Abraham on one side and Sasha on the other, and Darlene and Rick in the rear, followed the trail of the herd they'd slain. Daryl had hunted on this side of the camp sporadically, but he hadn't seen any sign of a large herd.

When they reached the stream, they found a dozen walkers floating between large chunks of drifting ice. Daryl hadn't seen sign of a herd because it had only recently come from the other side of the stream, across the frozen ice he hadn't dared to cross himself. Eventually, the ice had shattered under their weight, swallowing part of the herd. A few still stumbled around in the shallow water on the opposite shore. They shot those, but not the floaters that were face down. It was too hard to aim for the head when they were in that position.

"Drag 'em all out and kill 'em when the weather warms," Daryl said. "Probably some more trapped 'neath the ice. They'll float later."

"Why do we have to drag them out at all?" Abraham asked. "They can't swim ashore."

"Some might drift ashore," Rick said.

"It's also gonna be hard to fish if they're in there," Darlene explained.

Abraham nodded, and the party turned and headed back for camp, where workers were already reinforcing the part of the fence line that had been weakened by the herd.

[*]

Jody was buried with honor. His grave was marked by a rustic wooden cross. Prayers were said, and Roscoe sung a dirge. Sophia cried, burying her face against Carol's side and rattling Daryl to the core with her tears.

The Council discussed the building of a partition fence below Cabin 3 and around the park, in case the gates were ever breached, so they might slow down a herd and save the farm land, greenhouse, solar bay, smokehouse, root cellar, and pantry from damage.

"That leaves you all alone up there, though," Darlene told Daryl and Carol.

"Don't mind a little privacy," Daryl replied. "'Sides, we'll leave them interior gates open unless they _got_ to be closed."

"We're out of lumber," Maggie said.

"We've got an entire forest," Carol reminded her. "And an agricultural manager to tell us how to safely cut it down."

"Oh, Mateo will be more than happy to boss a team around for that," Maggie said.

"Got that run-down cabin, too," Daryl said. "The one we used to build the smokehouse. Still got lumber in it."

"But what about nails?" Darlene asked. "Haven't we used almost all of them?"

"Can round up more from the garages in the lower cabins," Daryl said. "They all got workbenches."

The Council disassembled and the camp got to work.

[*]

That night, when Roscoe came to relieve him in the watchtower, Daryl pulled out a smoke before the man even started talking.

"Some day, huh?" Roscoe asked as Daryl lit up.

"Mhm." Daryl exhaled sharply. The smoke danced like grasping gray tentacles in the darkness.

"Guess I was kind of getting used to people not dying. We haven't lost anyone since Bob, and that was _outside_ the camp. Shook me up more than I expected."

"Me too," Daryl admitted.

Roscoe scoured the trees through the binoculars. "Good kid, Jody. Never liked the way he was always checking out Rosita's ass, but he was a good kid, all and all. Saved her life."

"So did you," Daryl said.

Roscoe snorted and let the binoculars fall. "I opened a gate. That was my entire contribution."

"Shot and drew 'em off 'er, too."

"Well, she sure did seem happy I was alive, anyway. And she wanted me to _hold_ her tonight until she fell asleep. Imagine that. Like she _needed_ me."

"Hell, Roscoe, maybe she does."

"Maybe. Who would have guessed Rosita needed anyone?" He took the safety off his rifle. "Strange, the people this world brings together."

Daryl thought of Carol, and murmured his agreement. He finished his cigarette, stubbed it out, and said his farewells. When he got inside the cabin, he locked the door and shed his poncho and his gloves in a pool in the foyer and stepped out of his boots. As he passed Sophia's room, the sounds of crying drifted out from under the door. He knocked lightly. "Soph? Can I come in?"

She murmured something indecipherable, which he took for a yes. When he opened the door, the coils of her space heater sizzled burnt orange in the darkness. He turned on her bedside lamp and found her brushing tears from her eyes with the back of her hand.

Daryl sat on the foot of her bed, and the mattress shifted beneath his weight. "Ya liked Jody. He gave ya them...uh...DVDs."

Sophia sobbed. Every muscle in his body went tense, and he wished to God he knew what to say. Why had he come in here? He should have just told Carol she was crying. Carol would know what to do.

"It's my fault he's dead!" Sophia sobbed.

"Hell?" Daryl asked. "Ain't yer fault. How could it possibly be yer fault?"

"Because I thought I saw you in the smokehouse earlier. I thought you were back from hunting, and then I saw the gate unlocked. So I locked it. I thought you forgot!" Tears brewed again in Sophia's blue eyes. "If I hadn't locked it, Mr. Ford wouldn't have come down from that watchtower to let you in, and he would have seen that herd in the woods. He would have warned the cleaning team to get in, and Jody wouldn't have had to try to save them! He wouldn't be dead!" She took in a gasping breath, because the words had flowed out of her too fast to breathe.

"Nah, nah, nah, Soph. Ain't yer fault! Abraham couldn't of seen that herd from the watchtower nohow. Too many thick evergreens over there. Cain't see a damn thing in them woods. I know. I've tried. Hell, the cleanin' team was right there by the trees and couldn't see 'em 'til the herd spilled out. Ain't yer fault at all!"

"Really?"

"Yeah. Ya can only see the fence and the treeline from that watchtower. Would of been too late anyhow. And it was smart thinking, to keep that gate locked. Don't want no unlocked gates 'round here. Just...just make sure I's really back inside next time. A'ight?"

Sophia nodded and swiped at her tear streaked cheeks again. Daryl swallowed and reached out and squeezed her ankle beneath the comforter. "Shit happens. 'Specially in this world. Ain't no one's fault. Damn walkers' fault." He ducked his head to catch her eyes, because her head was bent down. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," she said and nodded.

He patted her ankle and stood.

"Dad?" she asked.

His heart seized at that word. Sophia didn't call him that too often. "Mhmh?"

"I know I'm too old, but...could you maybe read to me for a little?"

"Sure. Whatcha readin'?"

She pointed to a book on her nightstand. Daryl pulled the desk chair up beside her bed, straddled it backward, and picked up the book. _The Hunger Games. "_ 'S 'bout?"

"It's apocalyptic fiction," Sophia replied. "It came out right before the Outbreak."

He read the back blurb. " _That's_ what ya wanna read?"

Sophia shrugged. "Well, I figure it'll make me realize it could be worse. At least we aren't living under the rule of a dictator that makes us fight to the death for entertainment."

"Hmmm..." Daryl opened the book to the spot where her bookmark was lodged, at the start of the second chapter, and began reading. Sophia was asleep before he even finished the chapter. But he took the book with him and read in front of the fireplace until he reached the last page. He dampened the fire, and it was two a.m. before he crawled into bed.

Carol stirred. She scooted back toward him, until her back was pressed against his chest, and wiggled slightly. He knew by now this meant she wanted his arm around her. He let it fall across her waist.

"What time is it?" she asked.

"Time to sleep. Go on back to sleep."

"Good." She yawned and fell silent.

He buried his face against her shoulder. The lullaby of her soft breathing soothed him to sleep.

[*]

Haley's arrow pierced a walker's brain. "Guess it wasn't Dalton we had to worry about," she said as she pulled the arrow out and freed the carcass from the trap.

"Yeah. These one's ain't herdin'. Probably have 'em all cleaned out in another two months." He sighed to see the half-devoured female possum in his snare.

"Did you know Tara used to be a cop?" Haley asked.

"Mhm," he murmured as he tossed the remains of the possum.

"That's so cool. I used to think I might want to go into law enforcement. FBI. You know, when I finished my degree. I was double majoring in political science and criminal justice, but I was kind of on the six-year college plan, with all the time I spent on archery."

"Mhm." Daryl reset the snare.

"How old is Tara? Do you know?"

"Dunno. Twenty-seven. Thirty-two maybe." He couldn't tell how old a woman was by looking at her. Not like this live possum in his second snare. He could tell this one was about four and a half months, because it hadn't yet left its mamma to strike out on its own, but it was also too big to be a young kit.

"Did you know she's gay?"

Daryl was confused. "The possum?"

" _No._ Tara."

"Mhm. Roscoe mentioned." He looked the possum over for bite marks. There were none. He'd bring it to Mateo. They'd feed it the mice they were keeping out of the pantry and eat it when it was bigger.

"Why didn't anyone tell _me_?" Haley asked.

"Tell ya what?"

"That Tara's gay."

"The hell would they?" Daryl dropped the squirming possum into a sack that was perforated with holes.

"Fair enough," Haley said. She took the sack from his outstretched hand.

"Think that's the best we's gonna do today," he told her, and they headed back for the ATV.

"Didn't want to take Patrick hunting with you today?" she asked with a smirk as she climbed inside.

"Maybe I will next time. He don't talk so damn much."

"Sorry if I'm too chatty this morning," she said as he started the ATV. "It's how I deal with...things. I saw so many people die in Woodbury. I thought I was done watching people die."

"We all did." He pushed down on the accelerator and the ATV eased through the trees.

"There's nothing you can do about them, you know. Love will find a way."

"Hell ya talkin' bout?" Daryl asked as he drove toward the west fence.

"Puppy love. Patrick and Sophia."

"They's just friends. And they ain't puppies."

Haley chuckled. "Whatever you say, Coach."

[*]

After the raid, everyone affixed bayonets to their rifles, with the help of Morgan's welding and smelting skills. Rosita's bayonet had come in handy during the attack, and they all asked themselves why they hadn't done it before.

The Council consulted the plans they'd found to the well system in a lower cabin that had once served as a sales and rental office and were reassured to find that the well water had no contact with the stream where walkers floated.

Daryl hunted in the mornings and labored on the new partition fence in the afternoons and evenings, while Carol sewed, helped with the laundry, and cooked. Dr. S had told her no hammering or sawing yet, even if her shoulder rarely pained her anymore.

Sometimes Carol stopped by to watch Daryl at work on the fence, under the guise of bringing him water. Daryl was an intense worker, focused, efficient, and good at following the foreman's directions. He said he'd never held down a job for more than ten months in the old world. Carol could only think that Merle was to blame for that.

By the last day in February, she began to feel somewhat safe again, though part of her was always waiting and ready for an attack. She treasured their quiet, peaceful evenings by the fire more than ever.

"Tea's damn good," Daryl muttered. He was in the armchair with his wool-sock-clad feet up on the coffee table while Sophia sat on the couch reading and Carol sat beside her sewing. "Where'd ya find it?"

"I _made_ it, from those herbs I've been growing in those pots in the kitchen."

"Herbs, huh?" he asked with a smirk.

"Not _those_ kinds of herbs."

Sophia shut _The Hunger Games._ "Crap!" she exclaimed.

"Language," Carol warned her.

"It's part of a trilogy! But now the rest of it is never going to be written! I'm never going to know what happens!"

"Write the rest of it yerself," Daryl suggested. "Ya like to write in that journal, yeah?"

Sophia seemed to consider the suggestion. "Maybe I will. And Katniss is totally getting together with Peeta when I do."

"Peeta!" Daryl exclaimed. "That wimp? Oughtta get together with Gale. Gale's a hunter. Peeta's a _baker_."

"Peeta's not a wimp!" Sophia countered. "He's _so_ sweet. He took a beating to burn that bread so he could give it to her."

"Shouldn't of burned it if he was gonna take a beatin' anyway! Just give it to her unburnt and take the same beatin'. Gale taught 'er to hunt. To survive. To make snares. And he's brave. He can fight. Don't need a Peeta in an apocalypse. Need a Gale."

"But Peeta's really smart," Sophia protested. "He tricked the Career tributes. And he's brave, too. He saved Katniss by fighting Cato when she got stung by the tracker jackers. He almost died doing it."

"Yeah, 'cause he don't know how to fight."

Carol chuckled. Daryl glanced at her. "What's so funny?" he asked.

"Nothing," she said. "I haven't read the book. It's just...it sounds like you're defending Gale because you think _you're_ more like Gale."

"No," Daryl insisted.

Carol pulled a needle through a pair of pants. "Well, good, because it actually sounds to me like maybe you're half Gale and half Peeta." She smiled at him. "The best of both worlds." He shifted uncomfortably in the arm chair. He still hadn't learned to take a compliment.

"Well I like smart, sensitive guys," Sophia said. "Who can bake and cook. That's _my_ type."

Daryl narrowed his eyes. "Wouldn't ya rather have a man who can hunt than can _bake_?"

"What's wrong with someone who can bake and cook?" Carol asked. "You don't think that's an important skill in the apocalypse?"

Daryl swung his legs off the coffee table and sat forward nervously. "Didn't say that."

"You think you could make recipes that stretch to supply twenty-nine people and still store well _and_ taste good?" Carol asked. Twenty-eight, she mentally corrected herself. Jody was gone now.

"No. Nah. Never said that. Cookin's real valuable."

"You think it's woman's work," Carol said.

Daryl looked like he was considering his words very carefully. "Thank ya for cookin' and bakin' for us. Ya do it real good."

Carol chuckled. "Nice save."

"Besides," Sophia said. "Why do I need a man to hunt for me when you're going to teach me to do it myself, right?"

"Ya want me to take ya huntin'?"

"Yes. You haven't for a long time. I want to learn how to do the snares."

"Well, hell, girl, why didn't ya say so?"

Sophia shrugged. "I thought you didn't want me along."

Sophia would slow Daryl and Haley down, Carol knew. Between Sophia's lingering limp, Daryl's urge to protect her, and her current lack of skill in hunting, they might not catch a thing. Besides, she'd been apprenticed to Greg to learn auto mechanics and serve as his missing arm. "Maybe you can take her in the _afternoon_ to teach her," Carol suggested. "After you're done hunting with Haley. Just take a break from working on the fence one or two days a week to give her lessons. Sophia's working in the mornings anyway with Greg."

"Yeah," Daryl agreed. "Whatdaya say, Soph? Huntin' lessons with yer old man tomorrow afternoon?"

Sophia grinned. "Yeah!"


	81. Bra Shopping

Daryl brought Darlene for cover, so he wouldn't have to worry about walkers while he was teaching his little girl. He was pleased with how quickly Sophia picked up how the snares worked. He showed her how to open them and re-set them. They didn't spy much wildlife today, as most animals were still hunkering down for the winter, but when they did see something - the squirrel he shot and the snake he showed Sophia how to dig out of its lair - he told her everything he knew about it. They even tracked a deer, but they lost its trail.

When they returned to the west gate, he entered the combination into the padlock on the outside. "36-16-22," he told Sophia. "In case ya ever need to open it." She would have to if he was ever injured or killed when they were out, but he didn't put it in those words. He slid the padlock into his pocket and opened the latch. Once they were through the gate, Sophia got out of the ATV and latched it from the inside and signed them back in.

As they drove toward Darlene's Cabin to drop her off, Daryl could hear shooting in the distance. He tensed.

"Patrick told me Zach was going to teach him to shoot this afternoon," Sophia said. "It's just coming from the range."

"Good," Daryl replied. "Boy needs to learn."

[*]

By the second week of March, the weather warmed, and the ice melted entirely away. The earth turned to mud. More walkers bobbed to the surface of the stream. A team of men and women cleaned the floating bodies out of the water and slew them - twenty-two in all, and every one that had an I.D. was from Blairsville.

"They must have come in a single herd," Darlene said at a Council meeting. "And stuck together the entire way."

"Blairsville ain't as far as Dalton," Daryl replied. "Less time to disperse."

"So what other small cities do we have to worry about?" Sasha asked. "That are within, say, less than thirty miles of us?"

"The village," Daryl said. "But we been there for supply runs. Ain't much of a problem. Chattsworth got 'bout 3,000."

"We drove by there on our way to the radio station. It was burned up. Someone set those walkers on fire before fleeing. I don't think we have to worry about it."

"Then we's good, long as a big herd don't stick together all the way from some city like Cleveland."

"That's almost 60 miles," Darlene said.

"Ain't talkin' bout Cleveland, Georgia. Cleveland, Tennessee. That's less 'n 40 miles from here."

"How's the reloading coming along?" Carol asked.

"Eugene and Carl were able to reload half the brass," Maggie said. "But they ran out of bullets. So Eugene started making them by hand. But then he ran out of gunpowder. We can't reload anymore. We've got enough ammo for a while, if we don't have to deal with a herd. But one more herd would exhaust our supply with no means to reload. We need to talk about a supply run."

They agreed that as soon as the partition fence was complete, they'd send a supply run northwest to an industrial area outside of Chattanooga, Tennessee, where there was a Walmart warehouse.

"Everyone's probably thought to hit the Walmarts," Sasha said. "But they may not have thought to hit the _warehouses_. We might get lucky and find a lot of ammo. And food."

"The team sets out in April at the latest," Maggie insisted. "Whether or not the partition fence is done."

They all agreed.

[*]

Daryl was heading out to hunt with Haley the next morning when he crossed paths with Sophia in their little kitchen. She was filling a travel mug with coffee. "That for me?" he asked.

"No, but I can pour you one." She took down another travel mug and began filling it.

"Who's that one for?"

"Me," she answered. She put down the now almost empty French Press. "I've got to get to work in Lot 1. Greg is showing me how to change oil today."

" _Mr._ Greg," he corrected her, because he didn't like her treating adults as equals. She was his _little_ girl, after all.

Sophia laughed. " _Mr._ Greg sounds funny."

"Well I dunno his last name. Hell ya start drinkin' coffee?"

She pushed down the cap to her travel mug. " _When_ in the hell, or _why_ in the hell?"

"Don't swear, girl."

She smiled. "Yes, sir," she said sarcastically.

"Hell ya need coffee for?"

"Well it's just, I'm a teenager now, and I'm an apprentice, and I have to go to work early, so I figured I should start drinking it. For a perk me up. _Patrick_ likes coffee, and he's only a year older than me." She took a sip, and Daryl could tell from her face she was trying not to wince at the bitter taste.

"Patrick's a year _and a half_ older 'n ya," Daryl emphasized. "He ain't workin' with ya on the cars, is he?"

"No. He's taken my place in the kitchen now that I'm on cars. Mom says he learns quickly and he's going to be an excellent chef someday, but he's especially good at baking."

"Hmh."

"Can you take me shopping in the lower cabins some afternoon, when you're done hunting?"

"For?" Hadn't he gotten her enough loot for Christmas? What more could she want?

"I need to find a bra."

Daryl flushed red from ear to ear. No she did not. Sure, she was developing a little, but hardly enough to need a _bra_. "Ask yer mama to take ya. She's itchin' to get outside the gates." Carol would tell Sophia she didn't need a damn bra.

"Okay." Sophia kissed his cheek. "Bye, Daddy. Good luck hunting!" She bounded out the door, a bounce in her non-limping leg.

Daryl shook his head and picked up his mug of coffee.

[*]

Haley was whistling.

"Shhh!" Daryl hissed. "Gonna scare the game."

Haley stopped. "Sorry, didn't notice I was doing it. I'm just happy is all. Got laid last night."

Daryl had no interest in chatting about anyone's love life, but a surprised "Who?" slipped out of his mouth. Carol had said Mateo, Greg, and Morgan were all too old for her. "Eugene?"

"God no!"

He hoped she wasn't sleeping with someone's husband or boyfriend. He hoped Zach wasn't cheating on his newlywed wife. "Then who?"

"Don't tell anyone, but…Tara."

"The hell?"

She laughed. "Sorry, didn't mean to freak you out. I'm sure you're old-fashioned about that."

He moved some brush with his foot to find a deer track in the mud, which he began to follow.

"You're totally freaked out, aren't you?" Haley asked.

"Just...Carol thought…never mind."

"That I was coming on to you?" Haley asked.

Daryl shrugged.

"Well, you _do_ have nice arms, but I didn't mean anything serious by flirting with you. I just wanted to have some fun. But, trust me, you were no fun. And maybe I flirted with Zach for a while, too, but then he actually _married_ Beth. Now he _was_ fun, so I figured I better stop. Whatever your wife may think, I'm not a homewrecker."

Daryl peered at her and then peered back at the tracks.

"I see you're confused. I'm bisexual."

"Mhm." He stooped down to examine the earth, rose, and walked on.

"I just didn't know Tara was gay until a couple of weeks ago. If I _had_ , I'd probably have been all over her _months_ ago."

"Don't need the details," he muttered.

"It wasn't a _detail_. It was just an observation."

"Don't need an observation neither."

"I bet you don't even think bisexuality exists."

"Ain't my business if it does or it don't."

"Does it bother you? That I am?"

"Don't affect me. Ya know what does, though? You runnin' yer mouth when we's tryin' to hunt."

Haley fell silent. An hour later, they were field dressing a deer, the first one they'd caught in weeks.

[*]

The third week of March, Carol took Sophia on that shopping trip in the lower cabins. For safety, she asked Rick and Michonne to come with them. That afternoon they killed nine walkers, which were meandering about in backyards near the tree line. Some they went out of their way to kill. It had been awhile since Carol had gotten up-close walker-slaying practice.

"I want you to kill this one," Carol told Sophia, nodding to a walker that lurched out of the treeline behind Cabin 12. They were standing several yards away, in the road. Sophia was already wearing the studded sleeves Carol had sewn her a few days ago. Nervously, the girl unsheathed the hunting knife Daryl had given her.

"Are you sure that's such a good idea?" Michonne asked.

"We'll meet you inside," Carol told her.

"C'mon," Rick beckoned Michonne. "Sophia's got to learn. I've already had Carl do it twice. Don't worry. Carol will cover her." Michonne nodded reluctantly and followed Rick toward the cabin. "Holler if you need us," Rick said.

Carol noted that they lingered on the porch rather than going inside and that Rick had unholstered his pistol.

"Get a good grip on the butt of your knife," she told her daughter.

Sophia tightened her hand. The walker spied them, sniffed the air, and lurched toward them up the hill, slipping down a little and then gaining a foothold and moving forward again.

"This one's about three inches taller than you. So wait until it bends its neck to bite to thrust."

Sophia swallowed and nodded.

"Aim for the brain. You've got the sleeves if it bites your arms. I'm right here if anything goes wrong." Carol drew her own knife. She was even more nervous than Sophia, but she didn't show it.

When the walker reached a flat area of overgrown grass, just beyond the dirt road on which they stood, Sophia moved forward, a slight limp in her stride. The walker gained a little speed, and they met in the road. The walker thrashed its jaws and bent as if aiming for Sophia's neck, which was when the girl reached up and grabbed onto its bony shoulder for perch. The walker turned its neck to snap at her arm, and as its teeth were just beginning to touch the studs on the sleeves, Sophia drove the blade deep into the side of its head.

"Eww! Eww! Eww!" she cried as the head squished in on itself. She stepped away, and the walker slouched to the ground.

"Recover your knife," Carol told her calmly, and Sophia did, sliding it out with a wince. Carol handed her a handkerchief to clean off the blood and brains before sheathing the weapon. "Next time, yank the knife out as soon as it goes all the way in, so you don't lose it. If there were another one coming, you'd be defenseless."

"Sorry."

"It's okay. It was your first time killing one with a knife. You did a good job. I'm proud of you, Sophia."

Sophia grinned. "Let me be the one who tells Dad."

Carol chuckled. "Okay."

They all went inside the cabin. While Sophia looked through the drawers of the teenage girls' room, Rick shopped for books in the study. Meanwhile, Michonne and Carol rummaged through the master's. Carol drew a skimpy, silky, lacy red nightie out of the top drawer of the long dresser and checked the size. One size bigger than hers, but it was skimpy enough to begin with that it would probably fit.

"Oh, Daryl's going to love that," Michonne teased.

Carol tossed it back in the drawer.

"Take it!" Michonne insisted.

"He'd think it was silly. I'm hardly a Victoria's Secret model."

"He will _not_ think it's silly. _Trust me._ Take it."

Carol looked at the nightie pooled on top of the underwear and socks. She plunged her hand back into the drawer, like she was plunging into a lake of cold, deep water, and snatched it up. She was just shoving it into her knapsack when Sophia walked in.

"I got five bras!" she said excitedly. "The shorts were too tight, but I got six t-shirts I liked and two dresses. The dresses fit really well even though I'm three inches shorter."

"That's because teenage girls wore skanky short dresses in the old world," Michonne said.

"What's this foamy stuff inside?" Sophia asked, pushing on the pads in the cups of one of the bras.

"We'll take those out," Carol told her.

[*]

"Hell she need a bra for anyhow?" Daryl muttered that night when he came to the bedroom and shut the door behind himself.

Carol smiled to herself. Daryl was really having a hard time with his little girl growing up, even harder than Carol was. "Well, she _doesn't_ really, _yet_ ," she said as she organized her dresser drawer. "But it just makes her feel better, more grown up, more comfortable with growing up. And she _will_ need one soon. Probably within the next few months."

Daryl grunted.

"Besides, it was worth the trip. I found something I think you're going to like."

"What?" he asked.

It took a little courage and some feigned nonchalance, but she plucked the red negligee out of her drawer, turned around, and held it up against herself. Her insecure feelings of silliness faded when Daryl's tongue jutted out between his lips and he licked them. He swallowed hard. "Yer gonna wear that for me?" he asked hopefully.

"If you want me to," she said.

"Now?"

She waved to the door. "Well, not if you stand here watching me put it on."

Daryl slipped out the door. When she let him come back in, his eyes raked over her. She felt embarrassed and exposed at first, but then a thrill ran through her as his eyes darkened in the glow of the single lamp that lit the room.

"C'mere," he said, and she walked slowly across the room to him, growing in confidence with each step, and she was smiling when she put a hand on his hip.

His fingertips alighted on the base of her neck. He trailed them down slowly and traced the lacy material that framed her cleavage before cupping a breast through the silky fabric. "Damn sexy," he murmured as he bent his head to kiss her.

He wouldn't let her take the thing off the whole time he made love to her. In the end, he just slipped her panties off from underneath it and pushed up the silky fabric. Maybe it was because she felt so good about herself, but Carol came even harder than usual, scraping her nails down Daryl's back and leaving a faint trail of scratched flesh. She apologized.

"Nah," them's the good marks," he said. "Wear those un's like a badge."

[*]

In the fourth week of March, the partition fence was completed. It was rough and a bit uneven; not as well designed and tightly constructed as the outer fence built from Loew's lumber - but it was serviceable. They began to feel secure again, as fewer and fewer walkers were being caught up on the pikes of the outer fence.

The second doe rabbit gave birth to a litter. The possum got pregnant. Mateo and his team prepared the farmland for planting. Vegetables filled the green house from wall to wall and they plucked and transferred some to the root cellar. Game multiplied in the woods, and Daryl and Haley bagged another deer.

With all this food at their fingertips, the Council's main priority was ammunition, and they hoped that the Walmart warehouse outside of Chattanooga would have plenty. The Council asked for supply run team volunteers, and then voted to send Abraham, Sasha, Morgan, and Zach. Because the team was headed into uncharted (for them) territory, the Council sent them with four rifles, two handguns, a large pick-up, one of the two Army trucks, and a half-loaded machine gun belt. Then they voted to let Rick take Sasha's place as an alternate on the Council until she should return.

Beth kissed Zach goodbye in front of everyone, but as usual refused to say the _word_ goodbye. Abraham and Sasha slid into the Army truck and eased through the open front gate, while Morgan and Zach took up the rear in the pick-up. Roscoe swung the gate shut behind them.

After that, the nervous waiting began.


	82. Visitors

Daryl was in the open garage using his press on his crossbow when Sophia walked in with her hands behind her back. "Hey, Dad," she said. "Do you want a brownie?"

He stopped what he was doing and turned. "Y'all made brownies?" His mouth watered. He didn't even know they had the ingredients to make those. "Hell, yeah, I want one."

"Here." Sophia extended him a piece of brown construction paper cut into the shape of an E. He took it from her hand and looked at it, confused. "It's a brown e. Happy April Fool's!" She laughed. "I got the idea from Patrick. He did it to me." She laughed again and went back inside the house.

Daryl grunted and tossed the E on the ground before returning to his press. When he came inside later, Patrick and Sophia were playing chess at the kitchen table using the chess set the boy had given her for her birthday. Daryl went to get himself a glass of water and pretended not to listen to them talk.

"How long before the supply runners get back, do you think?" Patrick asked.

"Two or three days, maybe," Sophia asked. "We're not allowed to worry until six days have passed."

"Is that a rule?"

"It's _my_ rule. Check."

"What?" Patrick studied the board. "Oh. You're right. You're getting really good at this game. You're smart."

Sophia looked up and caught Daryl watching them. "You want to play the winner?" she asked.

"Nah," he said and scurried off.

[*]

Haley stilled and looked around the forest. Daryl had sensed it too, movement. But he couldn't place it. Not quite walker. Not quite animal.

"This way," he whispered, and began walking in the direction of the disturbance. He studied the earth, the pines, the budding deciduous trees, but found no trace of the unusual. "Just the breeze, I reckon," he said.

They went back to hunting and came home with a wild turkey. "Thanksgiving in April," Haley said. "We're going to be popular tonight! Might even get laid."

"I don't need a turkey to get laid," he said.

[*]

Daryl snored once, let out a soft whistle through his nose, and then went back to breathing regularly. But it wasn't his gentle, intermittent snoring that was keeping Carol awake. She was counting days in her head.

Her last period had ended on February 13.

It was now April 3.

It wasn't that unusual for her to skip a period. She figured she was probably going through perimenopause. And that's probably all that had happened. She'd get her period in a few days, most likely.

But still, she couldn't stop thinking about it. Carol slid out of bed and took the once-full box of condoms from their nightstand. There was only one foil packet left inside. She tiptoed out to the living room, where she clicked on a lamp that was plugged into their portable generator. Out of habit, she glanced at the battery indicator, which read two out of four bars. Not time to deliver to Roscoe for recharging yet.

Carol turned the box over in her hands, searching for an expiration date, but it was smeared. She fished out the last foil packet and squinted to read the tiny numbers printed at the edge. One month expired. That wasn't a big deal, was it? Those dates were just suggestions, really. It wasn't as if they'd had a condom _break_ on them, not that she'd noticed, anyway.

"Doin' up?"

Carol startled at Daryl's voice. She shoved the condom in the box and shoved the box between the couch cushions.

He slid down next to her and pulled it out. Daryl looked at the box curiously. "Hell ya doin' out here with this?"

Carol sighed. "Nothing. I was just…"

"Just what?"

"I'm late. My period is late. Which happens. Sometimes I only get one every seven or eight weeks or so. But I was checking the expiration date, which I guess we should have done before. And it's a month expired. But that probably doesn't mean anything. I'm not pregnant. I'm sure I'm not pregnant. What are the odds, really? Five percent without condoms. With? Next to nothing."

Daryl grew very still and quiet beside her.

"Say something."

He opened his mouth, but was interrupted by the gong-gong-gong of the alarm bell they'd installed in the watchtower. He and Carol both ran for their weapons. By the time they were dressed and armed, Sophia was coming out of her bedroom in her PJ's and slippers with her .22 rifle in her hands.

[*]

Anticipating a herd of walkers, Daryl spilled out onto the porch in front of his girls. Above his cabin, through the open gate of the partition fence, he could see Rick climbing into the Army truck. The truck roared to life, backed up, made an abrupt turn, and came rumbling through the interior gate and down the hill toward the front of the camp.

A four-person ATV, with eight people in it, passed the Army truck. It went careening up the hill and ground to a halt in front of the cabin. Michonne was driving. Lilly sat in the front passenger's seat with Meghan on her lap. Maggie sat in the back seat next to Beth, who was holding Andre on her lap. Carl and Patrick were standing on the running boards and holding onto the roof. The boys leaped off, and the rest began to spill out.

"Hell's goin' on?" Daryl yelled.

Carl tipped up his father's deputy hat, which was a size too big for his head. "We're putting the mothers and children in your cabin." The boy sounded five years older than he had five weeks ago. "And closing the interior gates. Roscoe saw an army heading up the hill to our front gate from the watchtower."

"An _army_? The hell?"

"Two big trucks," Maggie said. "A dozen HUMVs. And two tanks, at the front and rear."

Daryl almost never heard Carol curse, but she did now: "Shiiiiit!"

Daryl's eyes swept over Beth, Maggie, and Lilly to make sure they all had rifles on their shoulders. They did. Carl had his dad's old revolver on his hip. Michonne had her katana. Even Patrick was armed, with the rifle Zach had been using to teach him to shoot. "If y'all got to flee out the back gate," he told Carol, "take the big black pick-up. Tank's full. Fits six inside and you and Maggie can shoot from the bed."

He ran for his motorcycle in Lot 2. His bike was only an eighth of a mile away, but the front gate was three. Carol ran after him. "Hell ya doin'!" he turned and yelled at her. "Get in the cabin! Now!" She had Sophia to protect. Hell, she might have their _baby_ to protect.

"I'm getting the pick-up," she told him. "I'm going to park in front of the cabin and load it up with some food in case we have to run. And don't tell me what to do!"

"Sorry."

"Be careful," she pleaded.

He kissed her once, hard, and then ran to his motorcycle, which he mounted and started with a violent kick. He flew past her and roared through the first interior gate, past the watchtower, where Roscoe stood scouring the scene through the scope of his rifle. Darlene was doing the same in the shooting stand on the west fence, and Glenn in the stand on the east fence. Daryl blew past Cabin 2, where most of the camp stood armed on the porch, and then through the open interior gate. Tara shut and latched the gate behind him, securing the pantry, smokehouse, greenhouse, solar bay, root cellar, and people inside.

When he got to the front gate, Daryl skidded to a stop, kicked out his stand, and jumped off his bike. Their only machine-gun-mounted truck was idling a yard before the gate. T-Dog was at the wheel of that truck now, and Rosita was standing behind the machine gun.

Rick alone had scaled the ladder to stand on the platform. His rifle was slung over his shoulder and his hands were raised in a show of peace, because they didn't stand a chance against such an army, especially with four of their best fighters and one of their Army trucks gone. Daryl had no idea how they could possibly extricate themselves from this situation, so he could only hope it was an army of good guys, maybe actual former military men and women who were looking for survivors.

After climbing to the platform beside Rick, Daryl opened and closed his hands, which rested at his sides, because he was itching to grasp the bow that rode his back.

The tank squealed to a stop three yards before the gate. Two army trucks flanked it. The HUMVs ground to a halt one-by-one behind it. The second tank brought up the rear.

From the front tank there flew an unusual flag. Daryl could tell it was hand sewn from the irregular and obvious stitching. The light of the big, full moon illuminated its design. On a red background there stood blue bars inside of which were white stars.

"A Confederate battle flag?" whispered Rick, trying to make out the pattern as the flag rippled in the breeze.

"Nah. It ain't." The blue bars weren't in the shape of an X, but of an M. "I know that flag." It was the flag his big brother had designed in their childhood and flown from his stick fort in the woods every time the neighborhood kids played war. "Kingdom of Merle."


	83. The Entrance of the King

"This isn't good," Rick said. "He's come back to take this place from us."

"Ya don't know that!" Daryl exclaimed. "Hell, maybe…maybe he just…"

"What?" Rick asked. "Wants to say a friendly _hello_? With his tanks and his guns? And…shit. Is that an RPG sticking out of the back of that truck?"

No. It wasn't an RPG. It was _three_ RPGs.

The lid of the head tank squeaked open. Daryl's heart froze for the length of one beat as he anticipated the head of his brother rising from the opening. Instead a glittery, silver tiara – like the kind you might put on a beauty pageant queen - crested the hole. It rose slowly into sight, followed by the mocha-skinned head of a long-haired woman, and then her sizable bust, tightly clad in a low-cut, bright red, silky top.

Rick blinked.

"That ain't Merle," Daryl said.

"No shit."

The woman crawled out of the tank. She had on tight, black, leather pants that accentuated her shapely legs and a pair of black combat boots, but no visible weapon. Several armed, camo-clad soldiers spilled out of one of the trucks, and one helped her down to the ground.

She strutted forward, a pronounced sashay in her hips, stopped a few feet from the gates, and announced, "I am Queen Esther, co-regent of a kingdom whose borders now stretch from the seat of our throne in Nashville to Four Roses in the north and the conquered realm of Terminus in the south."

"Four Roses?" Daryl muttered.

"It's a distillery in Kentucky," Rick whispered. "And Terminus…do you think she and Merle were _that_ couple? The one who killed all those cannibals and took over the place?"

They must have been. Who else but Merle could pull off something like that? Daryl had always said no one could kill Merle but Merle, but he had trouble imagining his racist brother wanting to be "co-regent" with a black woman, even one who only looked half black. And he had trouble imagining this dress-up princess kicking cannibal ass. "Maybe," he muttered.

"What do you want with us?" Rick asked over the fence.

"We want to extend to you the protection of our most glorious Kingdom!" she said, her voice confident and resonant. "So open wide your gates, and let us enter, and we shall share with you the good news of the Kingdom and inform you of your place within it."

"There's no way we're opening these gates and letting in your army," Rick replied.

"Then perhaps you will let in your friends?"

The canvas covering the back of one of the trucks fluttered open and four more armed soldiers leaped out. A ramp was extended, and Zach came walking down it, unarmed but not bound, followed by Abraham, Sasha, and Morgan, and then, with silver tooth glinting, an M-16 in his hands, and a thick, gray-brown Mohawk stretching down the center of his head, Merle himself.

Merle left the captives to the soldiers, shouldered his rifle, and walked toward his "queen." He slapped her on the ass. She jumped a little, but then slid her hand in his back pocket, turned to face him, stuck out her tongue, and curled it back toward herself like she was beckoning him to come closer. Merle did. He stretched out his own tongue, and then their tongues tangled with each other, there in the open.

Rick winced. Daryl looked away. When he looked back, they were kissing like two teenagers sucking face in the back seat of a car.

One of the soldiers looked at his watch.

Rick looked at Daryl.

Esther finally stepped away, and Merle returned his attention to the men at the gate. "Your friends here got caught up in a gunfight with the Pillagers outside of Chattanooga." Merle's strong, accented voice carried up to the platform.

"The who?" Rick asked.

"A nefarious gang we've been fighting back for the benefit of our subjects," Merle replied. "When we realized your people weren't _with_ them, we extracted them." Merle spread his arms out. "Quite the place you've built here, little brother! You've been busy since you left me for dead!"

"Didn't leave you for dead," Daryl called over the fence. "Left ya with guns, food, and ammo. And it looks like ya done just fine."

Merle dropped his arms and jerked his head back toward Zach, Abraham, Sasha, and Morgan. "Your friends here didn't want to admit where they's from, even after we saved them. But we found a map on one of them, all marked up, and well…it wasn't rocket science. But don't blame them. I'd of paid y'all a visit eventually anyway. Was planning to stop by in May. Just came a little early is all."

"Hell ya want, Merle?" Daryl shouted over the fence.

Merle ignored his question. "I told my queen you'd still be here, that a Dixon man can be relied upon in an apocalypse, but I didn't expect y'all would have built all this. And we _know_ what you've built, because we sent scouts ahead to look the whole damn thing over from the woods."

That must have been the presence he and Halley had sensed in the forest. They must have been some damn good scouts, too, because Daryl couldn't find a single trace of them, even when he looked.

[*]

"How can I help, ma'am?" Patrick asked.

"Box up all the food in our pantry and put it in the bed of the truck," Carol answered.

Carol grabbed a tote bag, went to the hall closet, and shoveled all seven of their boxes of ammo into it. As she was walking toward the front door, she stilled and let a hand fall instinctively to her stomach.

Patrick slipped the bag of ammunition she was holding from her grasp. "Are you all right, Mrs. Dixon?"

Carol startled to attention. No one had ever called her _Mrs. Dixon_ before. "Yes, I just...get that ammo the truck, would you?"

"Yes, ma'am."

She went back to the pantry and grabbed two gallons of bottled water. When she was throwing them into the bed of the truck, Roscoe jogged toward her. He was out of breath when he stopped by the tailgate.

"We're leaving with the kids," she said. "Until we know it's safe."

"Y'all can't," he told her. He swallowed and tilted his cowboy hat up nervously on his head. "There's more soldiers at the back gate now. I couldn't see them around that bend in the road earlier. But they've probably pulled up by now."

Carol's heart sank. "How many?"

"Another tank. Four HUM-Vs with machine guns. Another truck. No idea how many soldiers are in it. I think we just have to sit tight and hope Rick and Daryl can negotiate with Merle. They're talking to him right now."

"Merle?" Carol exclaimed.

"It _looked_ liked Merle, anyhow. Hard to tell through the binoculars, and it's been years and years since I've seen him, so I can't be sure, but he had that mohawk just like I remembered it."

"Merle doesn't have a mohawk."

"Well, he did," Roscoe said. "He's got our people - Zach, Sasha, Abraham, and Morgan."

"He took them prisoner?"

Roscoe replied, "They ain't bound. They don't look hurt. But they seem to be under guard for now. I better get back in the watch tower. Y'all hold up tight in that cabin. They're gonna have to bust through two sets of gates to get to y'all."

Carol nodded. She turned to find Sophia listening in and ushered her up the porch stairs.

Once inside, she told the others what was happening. Maggie double checked that her rifle was loaded. Michonne felt for the katana on her back. Carl tapped the pistol in his holster. Lilly held Meghan tighter in her arms, and Patrick dipped his head to Sophia and said, "It's going to be all right. Your dad will work it out with him. They're brothers, right?"

[*]

"Now you gonna let us in?" Merle asked. "So we can chat?"

"And if we don't?" Rick returned.

Merle shrugged. "Then I guess you're on your own against the massive herd of eight hundred or so walkers we've spied making its way in this direction from Cleveland."

"Ohio's nowhere near here," Rick called.

"Cleveland, Tennessee, dumb ass. It's less than forty miles from here. And that herd is only ten miles away now. You let me in, and I can help. You don't, and you're on your own. And based on that pile of walker bodies in the road beyond your rear gate? I'm gonna speculate you're damn near out of ammo."

How the hell did Merle know about that? Those bodies were over three miles away on the other side of camp.

"We've got plenty of ammo," Rick lied.

"And I guess you're on your own against the Pillagers, too," Merle went on. "They've got their headquarters in Athens. That would also be Athens, Tennessee for the geography genius up there. Not Athens, Greece."

"We haven't seen any pillagers," Rick said.

"That's because y'all ain't left this mountain since December, according to the boy there." He pointed at Zach. "But your friends _have_ seen the Pillagers now. They're quite the gang, and they like to conduct raids all over Tennessee, south Kentucky, and northern Alabama. Raping, murdering, pillaging, and burning. Now they've moved into Georgia. They'll find you eventually."

"He's lying," Rick whispered.

"He ain't," Daryl whispered back. "Played plenty of poker with Merle. Know all his tells."

"This ain't our entire army, by the by," Merle said. "There's more at your back gate."

Daryl clinched his fist. His girls couldn't flee now.

"And there's still more patrolling our fiefdoms," Queen Esther added.

"I've been even busier than y'all," Merle said. "So I can help. _If_ you become our subjects."

"And what does that mean, precisely?" Rick called back.

Merle grinned. "Let us in, and we'll talk it over."

Daryl leaned close to Rick. "Don't see that we have a choice. Ya saw what that last herd did to us. A herd twice that size, and we'd be out of _all_ our ammo, even if we survive."

"That herd may pass right by us," Rick whispered back. "It may detour before it even gets here, or go by on the highway and never come up this mountain."

" _Might_ come up though. Chasin' game. Like that Blairsville herd. Like the Dalton walkers. And even if that herd don't, got to think 'bout these damn Pillagers. Oughtta at least hear Merle out."

Rick stepped closer to him. "Are you saying this because he's your brother? Are you using your head here?"

"I'm sayin' it 'cause I got people to protect." A wife. A daughter. Hell, maybe even a baby. "So do you."

Rick sighed. Then, reluctantly, he nodded. To Merle, he called, "You can come in. Just you. And you bring in _our_ four people. Everyone else stays outside."

"I'm gonna need my Queen and my Royal Secretary to accompany me," Merle said. "And your four people stay _outside_ until we safely exit. And just so you know, if we're not safely outside these gates in two hours, my army's gonna huff, and puff, and blow your whole goddamn camp down."

"We at least need Sasha," Rick replied. "She's on our Council. If we're going to come to any kind of agreement with you, her signature has to be on it."

Merle turned back and looked Sasha over with curiosity. "Fine. We'll bring the nigger."

Esther raised her hand, palm outstretched, and smacked Merle in the back of the head.

"Ow!" he cried, and rubbed the spot she'd struck. "Fuck, woman! Told ya I'm _tryin'_! Ain't gonna happen overnight."

"She has a _name_ ," Esther told him thinly.

"Dumb bitch," Merle muttered. "Anyone ever tell you you're damn sensitive?"

"You," Esther replied. "Every day."

Merle shook his head and nodded toward Rick. "Fine. We'll bring in Sasha. The others stay."

Daryl blinked, unable to process what had just happened. Merle Dixon had just allowed a _woman_ to _correct_ him.

"Give us thirty minutes," Rick said, "to tell the camp what's going on and gather our Council, and then we'll let you in."

[*]

Daryl roared up to his cabin on his motorcycle. Carol, who had been peering out the window, opened the door and embraced him desperately. He bent his head against her neck for a moment, taking comfort in her softness and familiar scent, and then he worked her arm off of him and stepped back. "It's Merle," he said.

"Roscoe told me. He said the supply team's with him."

"Yeah. He's got a whole damn army, and a kingdom or some shit. Gonna let him in with two of his people and Sasha. Try to negotiate. Work out a protection deal."

"What does he _want_?"

"Dunno. That's what we're gonna find out. Need ya to assemble the rest of the Council."

Carol nodded. She began to step away, but he yanked her close, until her chest was pressed against his. "I's scared," he whispered into her ear.

"When you saw Merle?"

"Mean when ya told me ya might be…ya know. I's scared, 'cause what happened to Lori. Not 'cause I'm afraid to step up. If'n that's what it is, I will. I'll step up, Carol."

Carol breathed in sharply, like she was trying not to cry. She pulled back slightly and put the palm of her hand against his cheek.

He turned his face and kissed it before looking back. "Yer my wife. And I love ya. Whether ya are or ya ain't," his eyes dropped to her stomach, " gonna make it through this."

"We've got to make it through Merle first," she said.

"Yeah," he muttered.

She leaned in and kissed him softly. "Go let your brother in. I'll get the Council together."

[*]

Darlene, Carol, and Maggie assembled in the Council in the study of Cabin 2 while Daryl opened the front gate to his brother. Merle strolled in, looked at him through heavy eyelids, and said, "Guess you hoped I was dead by now."

"Ain't never wished you dead, Merle. Hoped ya was livin' the high life. And I guess you was."

"Highs and lows." Merle drew his eyes up and down Daryl. "Why don't you give me the grand tour, little brother?"

So Daryl, feeling like a whipped dog, did.

Sasha was sent ahead to join the Council. Merle's queen strutted alongside him, swinging her curvaceous hips over obviously, ooing and ahhing over the pantry, greenhouse, smokehouse, and solar bay. "Clever, clever," she kept saying. When they showed her running water in the cabins, she clapped like she was watching a magic trick. "Just like the farm fiefdom," she said.

Merle said nothing, and looked at everything with disdain, but he'd always looked at _everything_ like that, his entire life. It occurred to Daryl, suddenly, that he'd never had any idea what Merle was _really_ thinking.

Merle's "Royal Secretary," a pale, scrawny, short white man with small, gold-rimmed glasses and disarrayed black hair, walked alongside them with a clipboard. He asked a lot of question and took a lot of notes. They called him Harold.

While they were still in the park, Roscoe came down from the watchtower and approached them. It took Merle a moment to recognize him. "Well hell!" he cried. "Hey, Esther, this here's my half-brother, Roscoe Perkins. We had the same daddy, though daddy never copped to it. Probably 'cause Roscoe's a faggot. Used to cry at Hallmark commercials."

"No I didn't, Merle. My grandmama didn't even have a T.V."

"How the hell you get here?" Merle asked.

"With some good luck."

"Well, damn." Merle laughed. "Damn…." He shook his head.

"Ma'am," Roscoe said, nodding to Queen Esther. "It's an honor to meet the woman who could manage to share a Kingdom with Merle. You must be…quite something."

Esther held out her hand to him downward, like she expected it to be kissed. Roscoe raised it to his lips and did just that.

"I like him," she told Merle. "I want to fuck him later."

"Told ya he's a fag," Merle said. "And ya ain't allowed to fuck _no one_ but me no more. You know that!" He looked at Daryl. "So where's the Council Chambers?"

[*]

The Council waited in the study of the Big Cabin for Daryl to finish his tour with Merle.

"Did they hurt you?" Maggie asked Sasha.

Sasha shook her head. "We were attacked on the road by ten Pillagers. We were fighting them off, and losing, when a unit of Merle's army extracted us. Merle wasn't with them. But they brought us to him. His men didn't hurt us. They fed us well. But they asked a lot of questions. They wanted to know where we were from and what we had here. We didn't tell them, but…as you know, they figured it out."

"Were they the couple who took over Terminus, do you think?" Carol asked.

Sasha nodded. "I overheard a lot of talk from the soldiers. That woman - Esther? She's tougher than she looks. Apparently she was some kind of competitive martial artist in the old world...She's legendary among those soldiers. She and Merle…they _let_ themselves get captured by Terminus, to take it over from the inside. They'd been staking it out for a week and knew what they did to people, how many weapons they had, who opened the cattle cars, how the process worked, everything. They cleaned it out after they took it over, of vegetables and guns and ammo. " She looked out the open study door. "Here they come."

[*]

"Lots of estrogen in this room!" Merle exclaimed when he strolled in and looked around at the Council. "Hell is this? A matriarchy?"

His queen and secretary came in behind him, followed by Daryl.

"A representative democracy," Maggie replied. "We were elected."

"Where's Deputy Friendly? He ain't on your Council?" Merle asked.

"He's an alternate," Maggie answered. "For when someone's out."

"An _alternate_?" Merle laughed. "Well I'll be damned. I bet that put a burr in his britches!"

Queen Esther came to stand near Merle, but Harold the Royal Secretary wandered around the study, examining the books on the shelves.

"Damn, girl!" Merle looked Maggie over. "You're preggers!" Merle inched forward, titled his head confidentially toward her, and said, in a low voice, "You know, they can turn inside if they die."

"We know," Maggie said coolly.

"Lori died that way," Carol told him.

"Hmm..." said Merle, stepping back. "And yet _y'all_ banished _me_ because ya thought _I'd_ kill her. Sounds like a bit of poetic justice to me."

Carol stiffened, but she said nothing.

Merle reached out and patted Maggie's stomach. Maggie stepped back. "But the good news is," Merle told her, "they don't _all_ turn when they die."

"What? " Maggie asked.

"My sister-in-law," Esther answered. " She gave birth a month before Bad Boy here stumbled on our camp in Four Roses." She put a hand on Merle's arm.

Daryl bit down hard on his tongue so he wouldn't laugh when Esther called his brother _Bad Boy._

 _"_ But her baby died a month later, of that…uh…." Merle snapped his fingers in the direction of his royal secretary.

"Sudden infant death syndrome," Harold said. "SIDS."

"Yeah. SIDS."

"It was very sad," Esther said.

"She wouldn't let us put a knife in its brain," Merle continued. "Stood watch over the body, waitin' for it to turn. But it never _did_ turn."

"Why not?" Maggie asks.

"Hell if I know!" Merle exclaims. "Maybe because it was breast fed. Could be something in the breast milk that gives babies immunity. Titties are the cure!" He reached over and squeezed one of Esther's breasts. She slapped his hand away, and he laughed.

"That makes no sense at all," Maggie said. "Why would breast milk have antibodies against this disease _now_ and not have had them _before_? I mean, shouldn't all of us be immune who were breast fed?"

"Does any of this make sense, hot mamma?" Merle asked. "The dead rising to life? God knows why it works the way it works. All we know is that the baby sucked at its mama's tit for two months, and when it died, it didn't turn, but another one that died in the womb of her sister" – he pointed to Esther - "did."

"What happened to your sister?" Carol asked nervously. "When the baby died inside?"

"She miscarried it," Esther replied. "And she survived. We only knew it turned because we saw it in the toilet, writhing."

"See," said Darlene, directing her eyes at Maggie, "Lori only died because she didn't miscarry naturally. It normally won't be a problem."

Merle eased away from his queen, walked over behind the great oak desk, and sat down dramatically in the chair. Esther came to stand behind him and place a hand on each of his shoulders.

"Let's get down to business." Merle snapped his fingers, and his "royal secretary" hastened to his side.


	84. The King's Offer

"Lay out the map of the Kingdom," Merle ordered his secretary.

Harold reached into the brown satchel slung over his shoulder and pulled out a large map of the Southeastern United States, which he unfolded on the desk. He took out a pencil and circled the spot where the cabins were located. Merle looked up at Daryl. "What do y'all call this place?"

"Don't call it nothin'."

"Well I'm gonna call it the Cabin Fiefdom." Merle leaned back in the chair and drew out his hunting knife.

"Whatchya want, Merle?" Daryl asked.

"All I ever wanted," answered Merle, sliding his finger along the knife's unsharpened edge and then turning the blade downward, "was a brother who's not a traitor." He thrust the knife violently into the desk, which caused Harold to step back. "But I guess that was too damn much to ask."

Daryl didn't respond.

Esther patted Merle's shoulder and said, "There, there now, my great king. Remember what we talked about. Remember King David of Israel, how he forgave his vanquished enemies and made of them powerful allies." She leaned down and whispered something in his ear.

Merle pried the knife from the desk and slid it back in its sheath. He tented his fingers. "Tell you what, little brother. I'm not gonna hold your treachery against you, not this" - he held up a single finger - "One time. I'm gonna offer you the _same deal_ we offer _all_ my fiefdoms. You pay our price, and we give you total protection. From herds _and_ from the Pillagers."

"How many Pillagers are there?" Maggie asked.

"In addition to their headquarters in Athens, Tennessee," Harold answered, "they have outposts here," he pointed to a green circle around Huntsville, Alabama, "here," he pointed to Harlan, Kentucky, "and now here." Harold's fingertip came down on Hiawasse, Georgia. Daryl noted that outpost was less than forty miles from the cabins.

"Those are just the outposts we _know_ of," Merle said.

"How many people?" Maggie repeated.

"We've already killed a lot," Merle answered, "protectin' our fiefdoms. But they probably got at least two hundred left."

Darlene whistled.

"Don't worry, sugar," Merle told her. "I've got just as many. And I don't have my head straight up my ass like they do. I work according to a royal plan. We patrol every one of our fiefdoms in concentric circles - " He circled around and around the spot now labeled Cabin Fiefdom, "moving outward," he circled his finger inward, "and then back again."

"As our army does so," Esther explained, "it lures away, corals back, or, if it _can_ , eliminates entire herds. It also slaughters or drives out any Pillagers who enter the boundaries of our fiefdoms."

"Once we _claim_ a fiefdom, though," Merle pointed straight down at the circle around the cabins, "the Pillagers usually stay the hell away and look for easier targets. Like your friends, out there on the road. The last camp that didn't accept my protection?" Merle shrugged. "The Pillagers killed every man and child and raped every woman."

"And y'all didn't try to stop 'em?" Daryl asked.

"I _did_ try to stop 'em," Merle insisted. "I offered those people my protection. But they said they'd rather go it alone. So I _left_ them alone. Like they _asked._ And I concentrated on defending the people who wanted my help and were willing to pay for it. I ain't Jesus Christ, brother." Merle leaned forward on the desk. "I can't save the world. I can only defend those who agree to _contribute._ It ain't cheap, maintaining a Kingdom. I've got an entire army to transport, arm, feed, and clothe. The Parthenon to maintain – "

"- The _Parthenon_?" Maggie interrupted.

"The replica," Merle said. "In Nashville. Not the real one, in case that geography genius Deputy Friendly asks."

"Why do you have to _maintain_ it?" Maggie asked.

"Because that's where my queen and I keep our throne room."

"Well that's not ostentatious at all," Darlene said.

Merle tilted his head and eyed her. "A king deserves a little pomp and circumstance, Darlene. And there was food in the gift shop, a nearby pond for fishing, and a secure basement for my armory. Solid, heavy stone. There were seven port-a potties spread all over the grounds because of some festival they'd had recently. It's got a clear line of vision for yards and yards, which is good, because I've got an entire royal court who are _directly_ under my protection. When I say I have to _maintain_ the Parthenon, I mean I have to maintain my _court_. Who _live_ in the Parthenon."

"A royal _court_?" Darlene echoed.

"Got my queen. Got this secretary here," Merle pointed to Harold, "a physician, a butler, a chef, a page -"

"- My lady-in-waiting," Esther added.

"Not to mention my queen's sister, her sister-in-law, and the kids."

"The kids?" Daryl asked.

"My sister has four children," Esther explained.

Merle leaned back in the chair. "So let's just say King Merle has mouths to feed."

"How man fiefdoms ya got?" Daryl asked. He began to count the markings on the map.

"Y'all'll make seven," Merle answered. "And I think I'll stop there. "

"Seven's a nice, biblical number," Esther agreed.

"What's you price?" Carol asked.

Merle wagged a finger at her. "Can't believe this one's still alive." He looked at Daryl. "Ain't she the one who brought the spices? And that iron?" Merle laughed. He leaned across the desk toward Carol. "How'd you make it this long, sweetheart? By suckin' Daryl's dick?"

Daryl lunged across the desk and seized his brother by the collar of his thick, gray button-down shirt, which was open over his white undershirt.

Merle laughed. "Well I guess that's _just_ how then!"

Daryl was tightening his grip into a choke when Carol's hand on his shoulder brought him back to his senses. He let Merle go. "She's my _wife_ ," he hissed.

"You're _wife_?" asked Merle, sitting back up straight in the chair. He looked curiously at Carol. "Is that so? Hmmm…" He straightened his collar. "Well, congratulations, little brother. I always thought I'd be your best man. And you'd be mine. But I guess it was not to be." He drummed his fingertips on the desktop.

"What _is_ your price, Merle?" Darlene asked.

"I ask no more than God and less than the United States government. A mere tithe. Ten percent of the wild game you hunt – skinned, salted, smoked, and packed. Ten percent of every new litter of farm animals, like them rabbit you showed me. Ten percent of your fresh produce. Ten percent of anything you collect on your supply runs. Including ten percent of what's in that Walmart truck parked outside the first cabin on this mountain."

Daryl glanced at Sasha.

"We hit the warehouse before the Pillagers attacked us on the road," Sasha explained. "We filled two entire trucks. The Pillagers made off with one when Merle's army fought them back. Merle's army took the other one."

"And we're returning it, less ten percent, if you want our protection." Merle tapped the map. "And y'all have to agree to make your future supply runs _outside_ of my fiefdoms. We secure their borders within a nine-mile radius of their camps, and no one is allowed in without permission. Harold will leave y'all a map. Clearly marked. Anything outside of the marked boundaries is fair game, but we promise you no protection when y'all are outside of our fiefdoms." He leaned back in the desk chair and bounced. "Collections occur monthly."

"And how will you determine what's ten percent of our game and produce?" Carol asked.

"I'm an old-school sort of bastard," Merle answered. "I like to use the honor system for the most part. 'Cause I really do feel I'm offerin' a useful service here, and at a reasonable price. But, like ole' Ronnie Reagan used to say – trust but verify."

"Hell's that mean?" Daryl asked.

"Tell 'em, Harold."

"It means surprise inspections, one to two times per month. Our inspectors come in and inventory everything in your camp. If we find you've intentionally been holding back, then…well."

"Well _what_?" Maggie asked. "You _destroy_ us?"

"No," Merle said with a dry chuckle. "We simply remove our protection. We conclude our business arrangement. And when we're keeping herds of walkers out of _other_ fiefdoms, we don't take any special care to make sure we don't redirect 'em your way. Because you ain't ours to worry 'bout. But we won't _attack_ you. We ain't in the business of killin' innocent women and children. At least not _intentionally_."

The members of the Council exchanged glances.

"You clear out any herds from Blairsville lately?" Daryl asked tightly. Had his brother set them up to _need_ protection?

"That was the Pillagers," Harold replied. "They set the town on fire, which drove them out. They wanted to drive them west, away from Haiawasse. It's their modus operandi. When they establish an outpost, they drive the walkers in the direction of the areas they plan to loot. They assume that will clear out most of the people, or at least most of their ammo. Then they wait a few weeks, until the herd has moved on, and come behind it to rape and pillage the survivors."

Esther cleared her throat. "The refugees."

"Oh, yeah," Merle said. "As a condition of our protection, you also have to accept refugees into your camp. My army sometimes collects homeless survivors while they're out doing their duties, people without adequate skill to join my army. I can't support them _all_ with positions in my royal court. You've got twenty-eight people, so you take...uh..."

"Three," Harold said. "We round up."

"Three. Ten percent of your population."

"Are these _safe_ people?" Carol asked.

"Like I said, they ain't got the skill to be in my army." Merle snapped his fingers again.

"Your Highness?" Harold asked.

"The _list,_ dumb ass."

Harold pulled a folder out of his satchel, opened it, and ran his finger down a sheet of paper. "The next refugee up for placement," Harold said, "is a Father Gabriel Stokes, an Episcopal priest found alone near St. Sarah's Church in west Georgia."

"I thought we were going to keep him for a royal chaplain," Esther said.

"We _were_ ," Merle told her, "until you said he was _mighty_ _fine_ lookin'."

Esther shrugged. "He has a certain glow to his skin."

"'Sides, don't want any complete pansies in my court," Merle told her. "That man bolted the doors of his church and left his entire congregation to die. When our soldiers found him, he was outside scavenging for the _very first_ time."

"How did he live before then?" Sasha asked.

"Off of food from a canned food drive the church held before it all started," Harold answered.

"And the others?" Carol asked.

Harold looked back at his list. "Mika Samuels. A little girl, age ten. Lost her parents and was alone in a school with her older sister Lizzie when four of our soldiers found them."

"And the sister's the third refugee you're offering us?" Darlene asked.

"No," Harold said. "She was insane. She thought walkers were just like people. To prove it, she tried to murder Mika so she'd come back to life as one. One of our soldiers..." He swallowed. "He shot her when she was getting ready to stab Mika."

"Jesus," Daryl muttered. "Is Mika crazy, too?"

"Our royal physician, who is also a psychiatrist, evaluated her," Harold answered. "She was given a clean bill of mental health. She's a bit shell shocked, of course, but who isn't?" Harold moved his finger down the list. "The third refugee up for placement is Luke Donaldson. He's a boy, age 8, found orphaned and alone and living in an Alabama winery his family owned."

"Alabama has wineries?" Sasha asked.

"Not many," Harold answered. "But theirs had an iron fence around it, and their supply room was stocked with cured sausages and meats, hard cheeses, olives, crackers, nuts, candy, soda, and bottled water. Two of the wine fridges had battery back-ups, so they were able to preserve the meats and cheeses for months. They even had an outhouse on the premises and the grapes still grew for awhile. But his mother got sick, died in her sleep, turned, and bit his big brother and his father. His father killed them and then killed himself so Luke wouldn't have to. Safe to say, the boy's...quiet."

"So that's it," Merle said. "You take three of our refugees, give us ten percent of all you produce, and we'll make sure your camp remains unmolested."

"Gonna have to discuss all this privately," Daryl told Merle. "The whole Council. Make our recommendation to the camp, then put it to a vote."

Esther bent down and whispered something in Merle's ear.

"Oh, one more thing," Merle said. "That tithe includes soldiers. You've got twelve men over the age of sixteen, but one's missin' an arm, so a tenth of eleven is..."

"One," Harold says.

"I can divide, asshole!" Merle barks. "One. One soldier for my army. I'll take Daryl."

Carol caught Daryl's eyes, and his heart sank.


	85. The Deal

Merle chuckled. "Don't look so long in the face, brother. Ain't a bad gig. Tell him, Harold."

"Every soldier gets a one-week furlough home to his own fiefdom every five weeks, on a rotating schedule," Harold explained. "That is, if he has a camp. Some of our soldiers have no home outside the Army and they just a get a week of rest in the barracks. Every soldier gets ample food rations. Laundry service. A pack of cigarettes a week, and one bottle of bourbon a month."

"The _important_ thing," Esther said calmly and authoritatively, "is that every soldier in our army gets paid the honor of knowing he is protecting the subjects of the Kingdom, that he is defending men, women, and children from walkers, rapists, and Pillagers."

Carol met Esther's eyes directly, because she thought she'd have a better chance getting through to her than to Merle. "Daryl's our primary hunter. You won't get much of a tithe of wild game if you take him."

Esther returned her gaze mildly.

Carol attempted another angle. "He's also a father."

"A _daddy_?" Merle asked. "Daryl?" He snorted and looked at Carol's stomach. "Ain't you a little _old_ for that?"

"I mean he's a father to Sophia," she said, though the possibility that she might be pregnant was not far from her mind.

Merle cocked his head at Daryl. "Well, your woman's puttin' up quite the fight for you, ain't she?"

"Will you accept another volunteer?" Sasha asked. "Will you accept _me_?"

"Sasha," Daryl said, "Ya ain't got to - "

"- There are no women in my army," Merle interrupted.

"Why not?" Sasha asked.

"'Cause I ain't politically correct, sweetheart. Women are a distraction to fightin' men. We have an instinct to protect y'all at the expense of ourselves." Merle shrugged. "And to look at tits and asses."

Sasha glared at him.

"It's a recipe for disaster," he insisted. "There'd be twelve men for every woman, at close quarters…" He shook his head. "Ain't happenin' in the Army of Merle."

"Is that so?" asked Sasha, looking directly at Esther.

"Esther ain't in my _army._ She's a vistin' head of state. And sometimes I like _company_ when I travel."

"But you overthrew Terminus together, didn't you?" Sasha asked.

"I needed her for that. We had to look like a naïve couple. And Esther does well at sneaky hand-to-hand combat. I learned that the hard way." He winks at his queen. "I ain't sayin' women _can't_ fight. I'm just sayin' they can't _enlist_ in _my_ army."

"Will you take another male volunteer?" Carol asked. "Someone besides Daryl?"

Esther bent and whispered in Merle's ear. Carol strained to make out what she was saying, but she couldn't. Merle's expression went from peeved to resigned in the course of her whispering.

"Fine," he said when Esther stood straight again. "I'll take any man as long as he's over sixteen, able bodied, of sound mind, and can shoot well." Merle slapped his palms down on the desk and stood. "Y'all talk it over. I'm gonna go check in with my army, tell 'em I'm still alive, and then maybe one of you dumb asses could bring me a beer."

[*]

Maggie broke the semi-stunned silence that descended after Merle and his entourage left. "How much ammo is in that Walmart truck?"

"A few thousand rounds," Sasha said. "But the truck the Pillagers made off with had _tens of thousands_ of rounds."

"Shit," Darlene muttered. "We can't go this alone, can we?"

"Those Pillagers," Sasha said. " They're pure psychopaths. When they attacked us, they had human heads staked to their trucks like trophies."

"Jesus," Maggie whispered.

Carol shifted uneasily on her feet. "I think we should recommend to the camp that we accept the terms of Merle's agreement and then ask for a volunteer for the Army."

"Ya really think so?" Daryl asked.

"Merle could have taken everything we own with that Army," Carol said. "But he didn't. What he's asking for…honestly, it's less than I _expected_. And it's manageable for us, especially the way our resources are growing. And what he's offering in return…it's also more than I expected."

"You saw what that herd did to us," Maggie spoke up. "How it killed Jody and left Greg without an arm. We're lucky it didn't kill more of us. We're lucky we could fight it off. We might not be so lucky the next time. If Merle can really keep those herds out of our vicinity…That _alone_ is worth the tithe."

"As much as I don't care for Merle's personality," Sasha said, "I've seen his army in action, and I believe he _can_ do what he says he can do."

"Y'all don't know Merle," Darlene said. "He ain't exactly reliable."

"Maybe it's Esther who's reliable and Merle's just her puppet," Carol suggested.

"Merle ain't _nobdoy's_ puppet," Darlene insisted.

"You saw all that whispering," Carol told her. "She's got some kind of power over him."

Darlene scoffed. "Over his dick maybe." She shrugged. "Of course, that _is_ where his brain is located."

"Listen," Sasha said. "I didn't know Merle until his Army brought us to him, but based on the way his men extracted us, and the way they treated us so long as they held us... I'd say he and Esther are fairly benign dictators, as far as post-apocalyptic dictators go."

"How do we know he's gonna keep his word?" Darlene asked.

"We tell him we ain't gonna pay the first tithe until he proves himself," Daryl said. "Not until his army exterminates or drives back that herd. And we'll know if they do it or not, because one of us will be in that army."

"I hope it's not you," Carol admitted.

"'S my brother. Maybe I oughtta be the one to pay the price."

Carol sighed. "I know you feel guilty for leaving him in Kentucky, but -"

"- Nah, I don't," Daryl interrupted her, standing up straight and stepping away from the desk he'd been leaning back against. "'Cause I done what had to be done, for me, for you, for the whole damn camp. Hell, maybe I even done what had to be done for _Merle_. I don't feel guilty for that no more. But he's my brother. How can I ask another man to pay the price?"

" _If_ the camp votes to accept this deal," Sasha said, holding out a hand between Carol and Daryl as if halting a fight. "We'll _ask_ for _volunteers_ for Merle's army. Daryl, you're our best hunter. You're valuable here, feeding these people. That tithe is going to be a lot more expensive if we've got less meat. _If_ no one volunteers, _then_ you can step up. All right?"

Daryl nodded.

Darlene put a hand on her hip. "Sounds like Merle's finally found his calling. He was _born_ to be a warlord."

"And this entire world is a warzone now," Maggie said. "We could _use_ a warlord who's on our side."

[*]

Zach, Morgan, and Abraham were released back into the camp. Merle's army remained outside the gates, while Merle, his queen, and his secretary sat on the porch of the Big Cabin, sipping beer and waiting for the camp to make its decision.

The entire camp gathered at the playground. The Council explained the terms of the offer, and they recommended that the camp accept it. Then they opened the floor to protests. No one stepped forward to oppose the recommendation.

"Then let's take the vote," Carol said. "All in favor of accepting the terms?"

Every hand went up.

"And now we need a volunteer for the army," Sasha called out.

Abraham stepped forward out of the gathered crowd. "I would be honored to serve and protect this community, to defend it from its enemies."

Sasha exhaled. "I was afraid you'd do that."

" _This_ is my new mission," Abraham told her. He walked to where the Council stood, placed a hand on Sasha's hip, and looked in her eyes. "I'll be home for a week every five weeks." He smiled. "Absence makes the heart grow fonder."

"Yeah, well, there's also that little adage - _out of sight, out of mind_ ," she told him.

"You could _never_ be far from my mind."

Sasha bit her bottom lip.

"You _know_ I'm the right man for this job. Who else should it be? I'm the only man here who has military training. I've been looking for a greater purpose, and here it is, being laid at my feet!"

Sasha swallowed and nodded. "It's what you _have_ to do."

[*]

Carol walked with Daryl from the park toward Cabin 2, where Merle was waiting. "You were ready to volunteer if Abraham hadn't, weren't you?" she asked as they walked.

Daryl slowed his pace. "Course."

"Despite everything? Despite...the _possibility_."

He stopped walking altogether and turned to face her with a look of disbelief in his eyes. " _Because_ of the possibility. Got things worth protectin' here. You. Soph. Maybe..." He nodded to her stomach.

"Well I'm glad it wasn't you. The idea of only having you around one week out of every six..." She shook her head. "Sophia needs you more than that. _I_ need you." More quietly, with her eyes downcast, she said, "And you don't need to be around Merle again."

He stepped a little closer. He put his hand under her chin and tilted her head up to look in her eyes. "Ain't no goin' back for me," he said. "No matter what. Merle or no Merle. Ain't no goin' back to the man I was."

She took the hand that was under her chin and pressed it to her cheek. "Not for me either. No going back to the woman I was before you."

"Ain't no goin' back for _us_ ," he assured her. He bent his head and pressed his lips once to hers before stepping away. "But I need to talk to my brother alone. Dixon to Dixon."

Carol nodded. "I understand."

They found Merle, Harold, and Esther sitting on the porch of the Big Cabin. Carol invited Merle's queen and secretary to come inside the cabin with her, while Daryl took the rocking chair Harold had vacated.

Once inside, Harold asked to peruse the library. "If I might borrow a book or two - "

"- I'm sure no one would object," Carol said. "As long as it's not a construction or survival guide."

He nodded and disappeared into the study while Carol invited Esther to the kitchen for a cup of tea. Esther sat with careful, upright posture as she dunked her tea bag up and down in the hot water.

"So..." Carol began the conversation, "I hear you have a martial arts background?"

"I've trained in Taekwondo since I was a small child," she answered. "My father owned a school. And I studied Krav Maga when I lived in Israel."

"May I ask why you lived in Israel?"

"I married an Israeli I met at an international competition. The marriage lasted four years. I gained a daughter and a new skill, and then I moved back to America. I lost the daughter, but I kept the skill." She set her tea bag down on the saucer, raised her cup, and blew on it gently. Then she took a small sip.

"Did you lose her to the superflu?" Carol asked.

"To a car accident three years before the superflu. The apocalypse has no monopoly on suffering." She set the cup down on the saucer. "Quite nice. We have several canisters of herbal tea much like this at the Parthenon. We brought them back from the village fiefdom. It was one of those living history villages. The workers there learned those old-fashioned skills largely for show, but...they came in handy in the end."

Carol couldn't help stealing glances at the silly tiara on Esther's head.

"You like it?" Esther asked, touching the glittery, silver thing.

"It's..." Carol struggled to keep a straight face. "...lovely."

"It's utterly ridiculous," Esther said. "But it helps me to make a dramatic entrance. It puzzles people and throws them off guard. People think I might be crazy, and people are afraid of crazy. And fear is a powerful weapon."

"But you're _not_ crazy?" Carol asked carefully.

Esther's chuckle was high and surprisingly girlish given her resonant voice and formal demeanor. "Aren't we all, at least a little bit, at this point?" She took another sip of tea.

"So...how did you and Merle meet, exactly?"

"He tried to rob me, and then he saved my life and the lives of my entire family. And then I fucked him hard, which made him very receptive when I asked him to help me start building my kingdom. "

"Oh," Carol said quietly as she drew her tea cup to her lips.

[*]

Daryl stretched out one leg across the porch, until his heel almost rested on the rail. "We'll agree to your terms. Start off by givin' ya Abraham for a solider."

"Hmm," Merle murmured, as though he was skeptical of the offer.

"He's got military training."

"Heard from General Boone that he killed three of the Pillagers. Guess I'll take 'em."

Merle had _generals_? When had he learned to delegate? "We don't take your refugees, and you don't take _any_ of our supplies, meat, produce, or animals until _after_ your army takes care of that Cleveland herd."

Merle rubbed his chin. "You don't trust me to deliver on a promise? Is that it, little brother? If I recall, _you're_ the one who broke your word to me. Told me we'd do the bourbon trail together, and then you just up and left me by the side of the road."

Daryl gritted his jaw.

" _Me_ , on the other hand," Merle said, leaning toward him over the end table between them, "when have I _ever_ broken my word to you?"

Maybe it was because he hadn't been exposed to Merle's manipulations for months, or maybe it was because he'd learned what it felt like to be a part of a truly loving family, or maybe it was because he was humiliated to be relying on his big brother for protection, but Merle's question snapped loose the lock on Daryl's box of dark things. He yanked his leg back and sat straight up. "A hundred times, Merle!"

"What?"

"Every damn time ya promised me ya'd quit the meth, but then ya didn't. When ya told me we'd leave that goddamn house together as soon as ya turned 16, but instead ya let yerself get sent to juvie! When ya told me you'd come back and get me soon as ya turned 18, but instead ya joined the Army! Ya broke your word, Merle. Over and over and over! Ya left me! Ya left me alone with that drunk, angry bastard and his switch!"

When the tirade was out, Daryl wished he could suck it all back in. What if he'd just jeopardized everything? What if Merle walked away right now and left them alone against that herd and that gang?

But Merle didn't look angry. He just looked shocked. Shocked and….something else. "I didn't know he used the switch on you," Merle said quietly.

"Yeah," Daryl choked out. "You did. 'Cause he did it to you, too. That's why ya left."

Merle's hands curled tightly around the arms of the rocking chair. "I had to. I would have killed him otherwise."

Daryl wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and turned his face away from his brother.

"Jesus, Daryl, I was just a teenager. I was older 'n you, but I was just a goddamn kid! I couldn't save you. I couldn't even save myself!"

Daryl nodded. He breathed in to steady the heaving in his chest. "Yeah. I know."

They were both silent for the next few minutes, looking over the porch railing at the fence and gathering their emotions.

Merle was the first to speak. "But look at us now, little brother." He smacked Daryl lightly on the shoulder with the back of his hand. "Look at you! Big man on campus. Got yourself a place on the _Council_. Got yourself a little woman who can cook and clean and iron. How's Carol in the sack?"

Daryl glared at him and Merle laughed.

"Good, huh?" Merle asked.

Daryl tried to fight it, but a small smile cracked across his face. "Yeah. 'S good."

"And look at me," Merle said. "Got my own damn Kingdom! Just like I always dreamed of when we played war. Just wish Esther would agree to let me have the harem, too. But she keeps me busy enough." He winked. "What do you think of her?"

"Esther?" Daryl asked.

"Of course Esther."

"Uh…she's uh…." Fuck, what did he say? "She's...uh..."

"She's batshit crazy," Merle answered for him. "But you know the crazy ones are always the freakiest ones in bed. And the toughest ones in war."

"Reckon she suits ya then," Daryl said. "Maybe she's changed ya?" The old Merle wouldn't likely be trading. He'd just be robbing. And the old Merle certainly wouldn't be disciplined enough to govern a kingdom.

"Maybe. Got me off the meth for good. Ain't touched it since I met her. Found a police locker full of it two months ago when we were clearing out an armory, and I didn't even want it."

"Really?"

"I ain't touched nothin' 'cept bourbon and beer and cigarettes. No drugs at all. And the clarity that has followed..." Merle flicked his fingers as if to mimic an explosion of light over his head. "You wouldn't believe, little brother. Turns out I can think when I ain't thinkin' 'bout the next high."

"How'd y'all two uh...meet?"

"Esther, her brother, her sister-in-law, her sister and that woman's brood of children were livin' in the Four Roses distillery when I go there, 'bout a week after you left me at the Kentucky border. Esther knocked me out with a spiral kick when I busted in."

"So ya let a girl get the drop on ya?" Daryl asked.

"Didn't see her coming. But I've since seen her _cumming_." Merle cackled.

Daryl rolled his eyes. "What happened after she knocked ya out?"

"She tied me up good. Unfortunately, it wasn't as kinky as it sounds. By mornin', they found their little camp surrounded by eight armed men. The men must of followed the trail of my bike, thinking they had someone to rob. I tried to convince Esther to cut me loose to fight, but she thought I's with 'em. Fortunately, I'd been workin' on those ropes behind my back, and I got them off 'bout the time the first man broke through the door. Esther knocked him out with a kick, grabbed his gun, and shot the next one to come through the door, so I grabbed _his_ gun, and I commenced to killin'. We brought every one of them motherfuckers down, and then I helped patch up her brother, who got his shoulder shot in the fray. He lost both his legs in a car accident three years before the Collapse, rolls around in a fuckin' wheelchair, so he wasn't much help in the fight."

"But he got his wife pregnant?" Daryl asked.

"Well his dick still works."

"And ya saved him? Ya didn't just rob 'em and take off?"

"Well...Esther's sister's kids was cryin' and cryin' and cryin' 'cause they thought their uncle was gonna die. And, well..." Merle said, "maybe I'd been thinkin' 'bout all that Old Yeller bullshit you left me with. Maybe I'd been thinkin' 'bout it for days. And maybe I was thinkin' - Daryl's full of shit! I _ain't_ no goddamn rabid dog! So I fixed the man up."

"Then what?"

"I guess my skills impressed Esther, because she gave me a room in the distillery, and then she came into that room the first night to show me her appreciation, if ya know what I mean." Merle acted like he was grabbing a pair of imaginary hips and then thrust his crotch forward twice, grunting.

"Don't need the pantomime," Daryl said.

"She was already drippin' wet when she walked in there, too, just beggin' for a piece of the Merle. She wanted me to bend her over the desk, and she was screamin' - fuck me, Bad Boy, fuck me!"

"Don't need the play by play, neither."

"Then when we was done fuckin', she told me 'bout this abandoned National Guard armory she knew about. And as I had displayed my many talents, she said she trusted I could help her clear out the walkers that had overrun it. Said it wasn't a well-known location and it got overrun before it got looted. So I figure, what the hell. And damn if she wasn't right! It was fully loaded, brother. Guns, ammo, HUM-Vs, tanks, MREs, storage food, water, medicines."

"So yer kingdom started with a lucky find?"

"You could say that. But it expanded with a lot of grease and sweat. Esther had the _vision._ She just needed a _real man_ to help her with the _execution_. From there, we started claiming our fiefdoms, and we've been stockpiling shit ever since."

"How'd ya get people to _follow_ ya?"

"I'm a charmin' fellow," Merle insisted and laughed when Daryl gave him a skeptical look. "A display of power can be very convincing. So can my queen, when she wants to be. So can all that food and booze we offered in payment to our first soldiers."

"Damn," Daryl muttered, amazed that his brother had accomplished all this.

"I gotta ask," Merle said. " _Why_ Carol? Was she really the only one of these women ya could get to fuck ya?"

"Only one I wanted to," Daryl said through clenched teeth.

Merle snorted. Then he blinked. "Oh shit. You're _serious_." Daryl braced himself for the insult that was bound to follow, but it didn't come. Instead, Merle's question sounded earnest: "Why?"

"'Cause she believed in me, when no one else did."

"Hmm..." Merle rubbed his chin. "Tell you what. I'll bring you a good bottle of congratulatory bourbon when I bring them refugees." Merle stood up. Daryl followed his lead. "So we've got a deal?" Merle held out his hand. "I take Abraham today. We take care of that herd, and then I come back to drop off my refugees and pick up my tithe?"

"Yeah, we've got a deal." Daryl slid his hand into the big, firm palm of his brother and shook.

"Just you and me, brother," Merle said.

"You and me, Merle," Daryl replied, completing the old mantra for the sake of the brother he still loved, even if it wasn't true anymore, even if never quite had been. "You and me against the world."


	86. Preparing for the Refugees

Before Merle and his army left, a solider hoisted a flag over the front gate. The newly risen sun cast orange rays against the fabric as it rippled in the morning breeze.

"So we's part of the Kingdom of Merle now, huh?" Daryl asked.

"Sometimes I call it Merle-land," Merle replied.

"Like the state?"

"Like my name, dumb ass. Merle - _land_."

"Oh, thought ya was sayin' Mereland." Mereland was how Daryl pronounced Maryland _._

"That's Mereland, little brother. Not Merle-land. Ain't no Mereland no more. There's only Merle-land."

"How come Esther don't get no part of the name?"

"Esther don't want no part of the name! Now listen. People will know not to fuck with you when they see that." Merle pointed to the flag. "Pillagers ain't the only gang around. They're just the biggest. But my flag is known throughout Georgia, Tennessee, and Kentucky." Merle leaned in close and whispered, "The password is _Bob's Your Uncle_."

"What?" Daryl asked when Merle leaned back.

"When someone shows up at your gates claiming to represent me, if you ain't sure, you ask for the password. Or if you run into my troops while you're out scavenging, and they bar your way, you give 'em the password, and they'll wave you on."

"A'ight," Daryl said.

"I change it every month. I'll keep you posted." He slapped Daryl on the shoulder.

They stood to the side as Glenn opened the gate and the Walmart truck rolled in. A blonde solider hanging out the open driver's side window asked, "Where do you want this?"

"Park it outside the Big Cabin," Glenn told him, and the truck rumbled on.

"Don't forget I get ten percent of that later," Merle warned Daryl. "Set it aside."

Daryl nodded.

Esther sashayed up beside Merle. She extended her hand to Daryl, but not in a way he could shake it.

"Kiss it, brother," Merle demanded.

Awkwardly, Daryl raised Ether's hands to his lips and kissed the back of it. She smelled like he imagined Egypt would smell. Esther chuckled lowly as she drew her hand a way. "I like him, too," she said.

"You like everybody, woman!" Merle slapped her on the ass. "Now get in the truck!" Esther turned and strolled out the gate. Merle followed, pausing to look at Abraham, who was gazing up at the flag swaying in the breeze. "C'mon, plebe! Got work for you to do."

Abraham looked back down at Sasha. "I'll keep these cabins safe," he vowed.

Sasha nodded, and they kissed before Abraham followed Merle to an army truck.

"Now I'm a little jealous," Carol teased in a whisper as she eased up beside Daryl. "Kissing a _queen_."

"Don't worry," he whispered back. "Kiss ya in better places later."

Carol smiled.

Glenn secured the gate shut behind the departing army, turned, and leaned back against the solid wood. He adjusted the strap of the rifle he'd been wearing on his shoulder ever since the alarm sounded, when he'd run for the nearest RTV to send Maggie and the other mothers and kids to Carol's cabin and then taken a defensive spot on the east platform. "I hope your brother can do what he claims," he told Daryl. "I've got my baby's future riding on it."

Carol's hand fell for a quick second to her own stomach, and then she dropped it to her side, where the back of her fingertips brushed Daryl's. "All of our futures are riding on it," she said.

[*]

Exhausted by the middle-of-the-night events, most of the Cabin Fiefdom went back to bed. Sophia threw herself face down on hers and didn't even bother with her blanket. Carol draped one over her and shut the door gently.

Daryl was standing nervously by the bathroom, one shoulder rested against the wall. Carol got the E.P.T. she'd picked up at the clinic and then smiled weakly at him as she slipped into the bathroom and closed the door.

Three minutes later, she opened that door again. Her stomach knotted with a web of mixed emotions as Daryl stepped inside.

"How long's it gonna take?" He searched for the test on the counter by the sink, but didn't find it until his eyes fell on the back of the toilet tank. The box was completely unopened. "The hell? Ain't ya gonna – "

"My period started."

"Oh."

She shrugged. "Perimenopause. It's so erratic." Carol waited for him to say something.

He crossed his arms tightly across his chest and stared at the unopened pregnancy test. "Oh," he said again.

That one, simple syllable almost broke her heart, because there was so much aching disappointment in it.

"You wanted this?" she asked.

His strong shoulders rose and fell ever so slightly. His eyes flitted over the counter and up into a corner. He did that, sometimes, when he was trying to control an emotion – looked up, like that would make it stop rising up in him. "Kind of like bein' a daddy."

"You're a good daddy." Carol stepped close and lay her head on his chest and wrapped her arms around his back. He rested his chin on her head. It wasn't until a few tears escaped her eyes that she realized she was disappointed, too. Relieved, but also disappointed. The two contradictory feelings tangled in her chest.

Daryl stepped back. "Glad I ain't got to worry 'bout ya gettin' hurt. I just...Dunno." He shrugged. "I ain't been a daddy but a few months, and Soph's _already_ growin' up."

Carol stroked his cheek with the back of her hand and then rested it gently on his shoulder. "She is, but she still needs her daddy. More than ever, probably. And you know something? We're about to have two orphans in this camp. I bet they could use a good father figure. Maybe we should volunteer to take Mika into our cabin. Let her share a room with Sophia."

Daryl nodded. "And that boy? Luke? Maybe I could teach 'em to hunt."

"And Maggie's having that baby in June. He or she's going to need godparents."

"Yeah." Daryl nodded. "Takes a village or some shit."

She smiled.

He bent his head and pressed a gentle, lingering kiss to her mouth. "Hey," he whispered, "this periomeno thing? It mean we ain't gonna have to use condoms no more?"

"Well, we should probably use them until I've gone several months without a period."

"'Cause uh…I ain't never done it without one."

"Never?"

He shook his head. "Hear it's a hell of a lot better." He hooked a finger into her belt loop. "What if Merle's right?" he asked. "What if they's immune, some of the babies? Ain't it kind of our duty, ya know, to _try_ to repopulate the earth?"

Carol laughed. "Like Adam and Eve?"

The left side of his mouth turned up. "Like Daryl and Carol."

Carol pressed her forehead to his. "As much as I would _love_ to have your baby Daryl, and I _would_ – in another world – when I was ten years younger…it's dangerous here. Even if it weren't for walkers and Pillagers and this disease, I'd be an older mother. The risks to me and the baby are higher."

"A'ight then. We keep usin' condoms until we ain't got to no more."

"I'm sorry."

"Nah. 'S smart thing. I know 's right. I just…" He took in a shaky sigh. "Didn't know I was gonna _like_ bein' a daddy is all. Didn't know I _wasn't_ gonna suck at it."

Carol kissed him softly on the lips. "It's good to know I have your support if an accident ever does happen." She stepped away and took his hand. "Come on," she whispered, "let's go to bed. You must be exhausted. I know I am."

"I got watch."

She dropped his hand. "Seriously?"

He winced. "Scheduled already."

"Well then I'll make you some coffee to get you through it," she told him and slipped through the bathroom door.

"Carol," he called after her.

She turned back. "What is it?"

"I…uh…." His hand came up, and his thumbnail went right between his teeth.

She smiled. "I love you, too, Daryl."

[*]

Maggie passed her spiral notebook around the Council room where they all sat on folding chairs. Daryl rubbed his eyes, yawned, and said, "Looks good to me" without even reading the cabin arrangements. He passed it on to Carol. Maggie had compiled a list in the Council notebook to reassign the rooms in expectation of the coming refugees:

 _Cabin 1_

 _Master – Daryl & Carol  
2nd bedroom – Sophia & Mika_

 _Cabin 2_

 _Master – Zach and Beth  
2nd bedroom – Michonne and Rick  
3rd bedroom - Carl and Andre  
4th bedroom – Karen  
Study – Council Chambers & Library  
Garage - Pantry_

"Why is Karen being moved out of Roscoe's cabin into Morgan's room?" Carol asked.

"They're switching rooms," Maggie said.

"Why?"

"Too many women in Cabin 3 and not enough in Cabin 2," Maggie said. "And…well…because Karen likes Roscoe."

"It's obvious," Sasha agreed. "And it avoids unnecessary conflict to move her."

"Why?" Darlene asked. "Ain't like Karen's putting the moves on Roscoe. She knows he's taken."

"It's not just that," Maggie said. "Karen doesn't need to see them being lovey-dovey every evening either."

"I ain't never seen Rosita be lovey-dovey," Darlene said.

"That's because you have second dinner shift and you haven't seen her _feeding_ Roscoe lately," Maggie told her with a shake of her head.

 _Cabin 3:_

 _Master bedroom – Halley & Tara_

"If we doubled up two men, Halley and Tara could still have their own rooms," Carol reasoned. "Why do the women always have to share?"

"Umm…. they _want_ to room together," Maggie said. " _You know_."

"Know what?"

"They's fuckin'," Daryl said. "Or whatever it is bi-lesbian-whatevers do."

Carol blinked. "What? When did this happen?"

He shrugged. "Couple weeks ago."

"Why didn't you mention it to me?"

Daryl, appearing confused, peered at her. "Hell would I?"

Carol laughed and shook her head. "Okay then." She read on:

 _2nd bedroom – Rosita & Roscoe  
3rd bedroom – Morgan  
Garage – Storage / Pantry Overflow_

Cabin 4:

 _Master – Sasha & Abraham  
2nd bedroom – Patrick & Luke_

"I like that you put Patrick and Luke together," Carol told her. "Maybe Patrick can help the boy settle in. Be a big brother figure."

"When are the refugees coming, anyway?" Maggie asked.

"When Merle comes for his tithe," Carol replied. "After that herd is taken care of. Which we can only hope is soon."

 _Cabin 5:_

 _Master – Lilly and Dr. S  
2nd bedroom – Father G_

Carol swallowed hard when she read that. That used to be Jody's bedroom.

 _Study / 3rd bedroom – Meghan  
Garage - Clinic_

 _Cabin 6:_

 _Master – Glenn and Maggie  
2nd bedroom – Mateo  
3rd bedroom – Eugene  
Garage – Reloading Room / Armory_

Cabin 7:

 _Master - T-Dog and Darlene_  
 _2nd bedroom - Greg_

"Looks good to me," Carol said. She passed the list to Sasha. Everyone approved it.

Carol turned to the inventory list next. "The supply team brought us back a lot of good loot from that Walmart warehouse." She read through the list, which included some ammunition and a great deal of food. "48 cans of corned beef hash, 48 cans of chicken chunks, 24 cans of Chunky beef soup, 24 Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup, 100 12-packs of Ramen Noodle – "

"- love that shit!" Daryl exclaimed.

"Really?" Carol asked.

"Pork flavor?" he asked hopefully.

"I didn't write down all the flavors," Carol said. "I think it was a mixture." She continued reading the list. Daryl interrupted every now and then with a "Hell yeah!" such as when she mentioned Funyuns, Velveeta, pork rinds, Manwich, and moonpies.

Darlene laughed. "My God, Daryl, you're such a redneck stereotype."

"Like you don't want them moonpies," Daryl replied.

"Oh, I'm gonna eat me some moonpies. As long as they ain't banana flavor. Are they?"

"They have _banana_ flavor?" Sasha asked.

"They were all chocolate," Carol said.

"Hallelujah!" Darlene exclaimed.

Carol read on. When she listed the pallet of canned Hormel chili right after the case of Fritos, Daryl said, "Hell yeah! Ya gotta make a frito pie for dinner tomorrow! _Please_?"

Carol smiled. "I'll think about it. The onions are almost ready to pick in the green house."

They'd also scored oatmeal, grits, cereal, powdered milk, baby food, cloth diapers, formula -

"Thank you for thinking of me," Maggie said, "In case for some reason I can't breastfeed."

"What do we do with it if ya can?" Daryl asked. "Can grown-ups drink formula?"

"If we ever get _desperate_ ," Sasha said.

Carol continued the litany of goods - salt, corn starch, flour, baking soda, rice, pasta, coffee, pickles, canned beets, green beans, kidney beans, yams, tomato sauce...the list went on.

"We only packed up half of the food in the warehouse," Sasha said, "because we could only get two trucks running. And we didn't even touch the clothes, except for those fifty boxes of boots."

"We should go back for more," Maggie suggested.

"Too late," Sasha told her. "Once he knew about it, while we were still captive, Merle sent his men to clear out the rest. Apparently, the entire basement of the Parthenon is storage, and they also have several construction trailers parked outside that are full of goods."

"He told you all this?" Darlene asked.

"No. I made it a point to listen into the soldier's conversations."

"So he's hoardin'?" Darlene asked.

"Well, to be fair," Sasha answered, "a lot of that food goes back out to feed the army, so Merle's supplies are always circulating out and then being replenished by tithes and his own supply runs."

"All this food means we can increase each cabin's rations a little bit, right?" Maggie asked.

"Yes," Carol replied. "Here's what I'm proposing for rations for the next three weeks." Carol began passing around a list she'd drawn up that afternoon. It was approved unanimously.

"'S next on the agenda?" Daryl asked.

"The leader of the cleaning team wants to speak to us," Carol said.

They called in Glenn, who said, "I need two more people for my team. We cleaned a lot of Dalton walkers off the pikes this morning, and after what happened with that Blarisville herd, we don't want to take any more chances. I think we should have a sniper in the west stand and the east stand while we're cleaning, to see things that can't be seen from the watchtower and to shoot if necessary."

Carol started the vote: "All in favor?"

A chorus of ayes went around the circle.

"Who do you want?" Carol asked.

"Zach, because he's our best shot."

"Gee, thanks," Darlene said.

Glenn grinned. "You're not bad either. We want you, too. Or Rick. Or T-Dog. Anyone who can shoot and isn't too busy. It would just be two hours each morning."

"Well, I'm bird hunting some mornings," Darlene said. "And Rick's been helping with the farming. So it'll have to be T-Dog." With a vote, the additions to the cleaning team were confirmed and the Council disassembled.

[*]

Carol loved morning sex. It was like a slow awakening, in more ways than one. Daryl began lazily and tenderly. Their languid movements were accompanied by a chorus of low murmurs and gentle sighs, a speaking without words. Carol's wanting grew gradually, the excitement mounting bit by tiny bit and ending with a quiet but complete satisfaction. Afterwards they drifted in and out of sleep for a few more minutes, naked limbs entwined, until the fully risen sun streamed in unmercifully.

"Make me coffee 'fore I go huntin'?" asked Daryl as he ran the tips of his fingers over her bare back.

"You just got laid, handsome. _You're_ supposed to make _me_ coffee."

"Handsome?" Daryl asked. "Ain't no one ever called me handsome."

She snuggled in with her head on his shoulder. "Well, you are. That's going to be my pet name for you from now on."

"No. 'S not."

"Would you prefer Pookie?"

"Pookie?" he asked. "Hell's a pookie?"

"You're a pookie."

" _Hell_ no."

"Aww, Pookie, why don't you like your name?"

"Ain't no one wants to fuck a _pookie,_ 's why _._ "

Carol chuckled. "I could call you Bad Boy."

"Stop!"

Now she laughed.

"'S weird," he muttered. "Esther and Merle."

"I don't know. I think they're strangely suited to each other."

"Ain't she black?"

"She told me her father was." Carol snuggled in closer. "Her mother was half Cherokee, half white."

"Don't get me wrong," Daryl said. "Merle'd always fuck any woman who was willin'. Merle's equal opportunity on the fuckin'. But Esther's like...his _wife_."

"His _queen_ ," Carol said with a smirk. "Although I think she wears the pants in that relationship and just makes Merle _believe_ he does."

"Think she's usin' 'em?"

"Yes and no. I think they want the same things."

"'S weird. Damn weird. Merle with a _co-regent_."

"Maybe Merle's been going through his own journey. His own set of changes. Just like you. Did you ever imagine you'd be married at all?"

"Nah. But I fantasized 'bout it. Just didn't think it'd happen."

She raised her head and looked into his sleepy eyes. "Really?"

"Mhmhm. Told ya. Dreamed of a home like this."

"I though you meant you dreamed of having good parents."

He shrugged. "That, too. Mostly...I just dreamed of havin' a _home_. Not a roof over my head. A _home._ Just never imagined it'd come true." He swallowed. "But it did come true." She kissed him long and tenderly, and when she pulled away, he said, "Weren't no damn walkers in my fantasy, though. And we had a big TV with satellite reception."

She chuckled and patted his chest. "I'll go make you some coffee, _Pookie_." He growled, and she smiled and slipped from the bed.

[*]

The cleaning team was on the west side of the fence when Daryl and Haley exited in the RTV. Glenn was peeling a dead walker off a pike and Rosita was stabbing another thrashing one while Morgan and Michonne piled two bodies atop each other.

Daryl idled the RTV while Haley asked, "Get a lot today?"

"Eight so far," Glenn answered.

"Dalton?" Daryl asked.

Glenn nodded. "All the ones that had licenses, anyway. Good thing the Dalton ones didn't herd."

"Or the herd dispersed 'fore the stragglers got here," Daryl said.

"There's a lot of them," Glenn replied. "But in another month or two, we'll probably have cleaned them all out. And if Merle's Army takes care of that Cleveland herd...we could have a walker-free woods come summer."

"Good. 'Cause we ain't catchin' game but twice a week," Daryl told him. "Oughtta be catchin' every day in spring." At least they had plenty of canned food, but Daryl would feel better if they could spread those cans out, rely more on what was in the forest, field, stream, and greenhouse.

Haley waved and Daryl drove on. They parked outside their favorite hunting grounds, gathered their weapons, and hiked in.

[*]

Daryl and Haley returned to the camp frustrated. They'd brought down a deer, but it had run a good mile with arrows in its side before it fell, and it had fallen too close to a walker. The deer was bit and contaminated before they could get to it. Daryl came home grumbling. Carol was running clothes over a washboard in a bucket on the porch. He slumped down in the rocking chair next to hers and muttered, "Ain't got no game."

Carol smiled, leaned over, and kissed his cheek. "Oh, I think you have a _little_ bit of game. You had game this morning."

He smiled and ducked his head.

"No luck in the forest?"

"Damn mangy walker got to my deer first."

"Sorry, Pookie. But we'll still have a little fresh meat tonight. Beth caught eight fish while Zach stood guard. It's a good thing Andrea taught her to fish before she..." Carol grew quiet. She scrubbed the pants harder against the board. The water splashed violently in the bucket.

"I's tired of losin' people, too."

Carol smiled weakly at him. "At least we're losing them more slowly these days."

"Ya ain't gonna lose me," he told her. "I ain't gonna allow the universe that."

"That's not something you can promise, Daryl."

"Just did, woman."

Carol snorted, scooped up a handful of sudsy water and splashed him with it.

Sophia, who had just rumbled up the hill in a golf cart driven by Patrick, laughed at the dripping Daryl when she stepped out. He glowered and wiped the suds from his cheeks.

"I'm done helping Greg with the vehicles," Sophia said. "Are you going to teach me some more hunting stuff?"

"Sure," Daryl said as he stood. "Go on in and get yer rifle."

"Can we bring Patrick?"

Daryl eyed Patrick. "Thought you didn't like to hunt."

"Sophia says I might learn to like it."

Daryl sighed. "Fine. Get yer rifle, boy."

Patrick reached behind himself and patted it on the backseat. "Already did."

As Sophia slipped by Daryl, she said, "Patrick's been teaching me to drive the golf cart."

Daryl turned his wary gaze back in Patrick's direction.

[*]

That night, when Carol and Daryl were sipping tea before the fireplace, she asked, "Why are you so wary about Patrick? He really is a very nice, respectful, considerate boy."

"Yeah, but he's a damn pansy that kid! If Soph's gonna like someone - if she's gonna grow up to _be_ with some man one day - want it to be someone who can _protect_ her."

"Daryl," Carol asked him, "did it ever occur to you that she'll be able to protect _herself_? Isn't that what we've both been teaching her to do?"

Daryl's throat rumbled. "That boy needs to grow a pair. 'S all I'm sayin'."

"I do agree he should learn a few more survival skills, but I think the truth is, in your eyes, _no one_ is ever going to be good enough for your little girl."

Daryl grunted. "Ain't true."

"Would you rather she end up with Carl one day?"

"Carl's too moody."

"Well, he's going through puberty," Carol said. "Hormones will do that to you."

"And the kid talks back to his daddy sometimes. Don't like it."

"We could take in a fourteen-year-old refugee who could hunt, shoot, fish, maintain a level mood, and do nuclear physics while saying _yes, ma'am,_ and you _still_ wouldn't like him if Sophia did."

"Hell good is nuclear physics gonna do Sophia?"

Carol chuckled and sipped her tea.


	87. The General Arrives

One day, as Daryl was returning from the hunt through the west gate, Roscoe, using a bullhorn, called down, "Daryl! Troops at the gate. Flying Merle's flag. Can you go check it out?"

Daryl gave him a thumbs up and let Haley and Sophia off at the smokehouse with the wild turkey they'd bagged before heading to the front gate and scaling the platform. A supply truck, flanked on either side by two Humvees, was at a stop before the front gate.

From the driver's side of one Humvee there emerged a man dressed in military fatigues and a black beret. A thick silver-gray stubble lined his chin and cheeks, though the sideburns that stretched halfway down his face were still mostly black. He was lean and subtly muscular, and he stood with a relaxed confidence as he looked up at Daryl. "I'm General Boone," he called up. "King Merle sent me."

"What's the password?" Daryl asked.

"Please don't make me say it," the man replied, as though it would be a humiliation to let those words fall from his lips.

Daryl was about to respond when Abraham stepped out of the second Humvee, grinned, and called up, in a booming voice, "Bob's your uncle!"

Daryl hastened down from the platform to open the gate and Abraham introduced him more formally to "General James Boone." Daryl shook the man's hand.

"I'm here to deliver the refugees and collect the tithe," the general said. "Your man here can confirm that we destroyed half the Cleveland herd and drove the other half away from this fiefdom, east, toward the Pillagers' outpost in Haiwaissee."

"It's true," Abraham told him.

"C'mon in then," Daryl said and led the way.

The general whistled and four soldiers spilled out of the two Humvees and jogged to his side. He waved the supply truck in, and it rolled through the open gate. Sasha must have heard Abraham's booming voice, because she was now running to embrace him.

Abraham lifted her off her feet into a bear hug and then set her down smiling.

"Two hours," General Boone told him. "This is _not_ an official furlough, but I think we can manage the loading without you."

"Thank you, sir." Abraham saluted his general. With the eagerness of a schoolboy, he grabbed Sasha's hand and began running with her toward their cabin.

A puff of air and a squeal sounded as the truck parked inside the camp.

"Merle ain't with ya?" Daryl asked the general as he closed the gate.

"The king does not attend to collections," answered General Boone.

A soldier jumped down from the cab of the truck and then helped down a black man in a white collar.

"That's Father Gabriel Stokes," General Boone told Daryl.

The priest turned and helped down a cute little blonde girl in pigtails. She wore a colorful spring dress over a pair of jeans and was clutching a stuffed bunny rabbit.

"Mika Samuels," General Boone said. "And the next one coming out is Luke Donaldson." The little boy refused Father Gabriel's help and jumped with a crunch to the pebbly dirt below. He had thick, curly brown hair, rich brown eyes, and a Cub Scout pocket knife strapped to the belt holding up his one-size-too-big shorts. Neither child spoke a word when introduced, and the girl melted against Father Gabriel's left leg.

"I need to assemble the Council," Daryl said, "have you brief 'em first, and then we'll get the refugees briefed and settled."He supposed Rick would have to serve as an alternate since Sasha was...preoccupied.

[*]

While Patrick, Sophia, and Carl served the refugees snacks in the kitchen, and the soldiers loitered outside the cabin ogling the women in the camp, General Boone gave a report to the Council in the study. He described how they'd destroyed part of the Cleveland and then redirected the rest toward the enemy outpost.

"Think the Pillagers are just gonna drive 'em right back at us?" Daryl asked.

"Quite possibly," General Boone replied. "But we'll be ready when they do. We'll destroy as many as we can and drive back the rest, like a game of hot potato. We're more organized than the Pillagers, more disciplined, and we have more firepower. We _will_ win this exchange." The general asked to see an inventory list of the tithe the army would be collecting today.

Carol removed it from a manila folder and handed it to him. He pulled out a pair of reading glass from his front pocket. His unusual hazel eyes, which had more blue and green than brown, scanned the paper. He looked up at Maggie. "Is the formula for your baby?"

"Well, I plan to breast feed, but...just in case."

"We'll take thirty percent of all your formula."

Rick stepped forward and pointed sharply at the floor for emphasis. "The agreement was a _tithe_. Not _three_ tithes."

General Boone held up a single hand in Rick's direction. "Relax. We'll let you keep our ten percent of the coffee and the ten percent of the..." His eyes flitted up and down the list "...moonpies in exchange."

"What if we don't _want_ to make that exchange?" Rick asked.

General Boone looked directly into Rick's eyes. "A woman in my home fiefdom gave birth three weeks ago to a healthy, beautiful baby boy. But she's not producing milk for some reason. Our supply runners salvaged a few cans of formula from some houses in a suburb, but she probably only has _one_ can left at this point."

"Well, you could have just led with that, you know," Rick said.

Carol looked around the Council. "All in favor?" There was a chorus of ayes.

Maggie said, "So there were no complications in that childbirth? And the baby's doing well?"

"Yes," General Boone told her. "This is only the second baby to have been born in the Kingdom. The first did not survive."

"We heard about that," Maggie said. "It didn't turn when it died. Any idea why?"

"I'm not paid to speculate. A science teacher in my fiefdom is working on some theories as to why, but we don't exactly have a high-tech laboratory in the high school."

"You live in a high school?" Darlene asked.

"Yes, when I'm on furlough. It's in southern Tennessee. It had a lot of food stored in the cafeteria and in the vending machines spread throughout the school. It has a clinic stocked with medicines, and it's surrounded by a barbwire fence, so it seemed like a good place to make camp when all this started."

"When did Merle take it over?" she asked.

"Well, he didn't _take_ it over," the general replied. "But in early December, he surrounded us with twenty armed men and offered us what I considered to be a reasonable arrangement. We'd already had a run-in with a unit of eight Pillagers that left my wife and one of my sons dead. We killed seven of them in the fight, but one escaped, and I feared he'd be back with many more. I volunteered for Merle's army, and by January, I was one of his generals."

"What did you do in the old world?" Darlene wanted to know. "Marines? Air Force? Or were you a Fed? You look like you might have been F.B.I. or C.I.A."

"I was an English teacher." He turned his attention to the rest of the Council. "Merle doesn't need the tea. The Kingdom is swimming in tea at the moment. Maybe I could have another ten percent of the formula for that?"

"I don't know," Maggie said, looking concerned. "I'll probably breastfeed, but – "

"- Never mind then," the general interrupted her. "We'll find more." He looked at Carol. "You don't list any medicines on this inventory."

"Merle never said anything about medicines," she replied.

"The Kingdom takes a tithe of everything you pick up on supply runs. Are you telling me you've _never_ picked up any medicines on supply runs?"

"Not since we made the deal," Carol said. "That list is the inventory from the Walmart truck, the greenhouse, the root cellar, the smokehouse, and the possum and rabbit farm. It doesn't include anything else, because _that_ was the deal we made with Merle."

General Boone made a doubtful noise. "Well, there must have been some misunderstanding. The _initial_ payment is a tenth of _everything_ you _currently_ possess. Then, _going forward_ , it's a tenth of what you _acquire_."

The Council exchanged glances.

"That ain't what we agreed to," Daryl said.

"We wrote our agreement down before they left." Carol said. "They both signed it." She got the file folder and showed the general the copy.

"Hmm..." he murmured as he looked it over. "Not usually how the king does it, but I'll take your word for it for the time being, until I can verify this."

The general handed the list back to Carol and removed his glasses. As he tucked them back into his pocket, he said, "I'll give you a moment to brief the refugees, and then I'd appreciate it if someone showed me around to collect."

[*]

The Council gave Father Gabriel the job of helping to plow and plant the newly cleared farmland. Mika was assigned to set and clear the dinner table at both shifts and help organize the pantry as needed, while Luke was given the tasks of sweeping up after dinner and helping Patrick to collect trash for burning.

"And you'll be going to school two to three hours a day," Maggie told the kids.

"School!" Luke exclaimed, speaking for the first time since he stepped down from the truck. " _Not_ having to go to school was the only good thing about this apocalypse!"

"I _like_ school," Mika said quietly.

"I hated first grade!" Luke moaned. "Why do we _still_ have to go to school?"

"Ain't that bad," Daryl reassured him. "Diff'rn stuff every day. Zach'll teach ya to shoot guns and do math. Carol'll teach ya to stab. I'll teach ya to skin and clean animals. Mateo'll teach you - "

"- Ewww…" Mika interrupted. "Do we _have_ to skin animals?"

"Biology," Daryl told her

"I already _know_ how to read," Luke insisted. "And write."

"Beth will teach you to read and write _better_ ," Carol assured him.

Luke sighed. "Yes, ma'am," he muttered. He looked around the Council as if a little frightened of his new surroundings and grateful for a place to live at the same time. "Whatever I have to do to eat."

While Carol was getting the kids settled in their cabins, Daryl led General Boone to the garage warehouse to collect the Walmart supplies they had set aside. The general left four of his soldier to load those boxes onto the truck and then followed Daryl to the park to see the produce in the greenhouse and root cellar.

"Karen'll tell you what's what," Daryl said as they walked. "Help us sort out your tithe of the vegetables."

As they neared the green house, one of the soldiers, a skinny, thirty-something man with long, brown hair, was standing with one arm leaned against the outer wall, half pinning Karen in place, and talking to her with a lecherous smile. She didn't look particularly happy with his attentions, and Daryl was about to tell the man to fuck off when General Boone barked, "Jackson!"

The soldier startled and stood straight immediately.

"Stop aggravating that poor woman, and go help load down there. Bring up the truck when you're done."

Jackson saluted. "Yes, sir. Right away, sir." He walked off.

"Ma'am," General Boone told Karen with a deferential tilt of his head, "if any of my soldiers should harass you, please inform me immediately. He will be disciplined accordingly."

"He wasn't exactly harassing me," Karen said. "He was just giving it his best shot and not getting anywhere."

"I presume you're otherwise attached?"

"No, I'm just not interested in him."

"Ah." The general smiled, which punctured his left cheek with an unexpected dimple that made him look ten years younger. His eyes flitted subtly, very quickly, up and down Karen's frame. "I imagine you'll be receiving much unsolicited attention today. Please do let me know if any of it is unwelcome and needs to be addressed."

She smiled. "I'll be sure to do that. _If_ it's unwelcome."

"If you would like," he said, walking one step closer to her, "I can keep you company while my soldiers finish loading the tithe. Strictly to ensure none of my men trouble you."

Karen chuckled. "How about a cup of tea in my cabin, then?"

The general nodded, and walked, with his hands behind his back, beside her down the hill.

"Guess that means I'm decidin' which vegetables go in the truck?" Daryl called after her.

"Basic math, Daryl," Karen called back to him.

[*]

Sophia laughed and, her stomach in the swing, ran forward before lifting her feet and soaring beside Mika, who was doing the same. Sophia was, at Carol's request, helping Mika to get comfortable in the camp, but Carol thought maybe she was also using this duty as an excuse to be a kid again for a little while. Meanwhile, Patrick was playing ping pong with Luke in one of the cabins.

Carol caught Daryl's smile as he watched his little girl. "It's good to see her doing something light hearted, isn't it?" she asked.

"Mhmh." He leaned back against the picnic table.

A few yards behind them, two of the soldiers were hanging out by the now loaded truck and smoking. Carol could feel their eyes on her constantly. She wasn't used to that level of male attention, and it was at once flattering and unnerving.

"Time is it?" Daryl asked. When she told him, he said, "Longest damn tea party ever."

"Well," she said, "that gives Abraham more time with Sasha, so let's not rush it. And Karen deserves a little romance of her own."

"Dunno how General Boone convinced her to walk away with 'em so damn fast."

"The general _is_ very good-looking."

He jerked his head toward her. "What?"

Carol, taking a guilty pleasure in his reaction, smiled. "I mean...If you happen to like that distinguished, dignified, well-groomed, man-of-power look."

"Which ya do?"

She slid a step closer to him. "I kind of prefer the rugged, unkempt, outdoorsy look myself." She bumped him playfully with her shoulder, and he grunted.

Daryl returned his attention to Sophia, who was now racing Mika to the slide. "Why ya suppose Merle didn't come?"

"Did you _want_ him to come?" Carol asked.

"Dunno," he said quietly. "Part of me did. Part of me didn't. Just...surprised he didn't wanna see me." He picked at some dirt under his fingernail. "Not that I care."

"You _do_ care," she told him. "And maybe he does, too. I mean, maybe he cares about _you._ And maybe that's why he _didn't_ come. Because this is _your_ world. The one you helped build without him. And maybe he realizes that."

"Cain't _protect_ it without 'em though."

"Ah," Carol said softly.

" _Hate_ that I _need_ his help."

"Well, think of it this way. He needs _yours_. He needs our tithe to help feed his army, and without his army, he can't maintain his Kingdom. You're a Councilman, a hunter, _and_ a supply runner. You're a big part of the reason we have enough abundance that we can give Merle a tenth."

He peered over at her with that hint of a smile that always made her heart seize. He didn't dismiss her compliment the way he so often did. "Thanks," he said quietly.

From behind them, Carol heard the general's masculine, resonant voice: "At ease."

The two soldiers who had snapped to attention relaxed.

Karen was beside the general. "I'm just going to check that you got the right vegetables," she told Daryl.

[*]

General Boone left them with a two-way radio for emergency communication, and showed the Council which frequency to use to contact him. "I'm in charge of patrolling two fiefdoms - yours and my own, which is northwest of here. The circles overlap somewhat. My men will never be more than fifty miles from you, which is about the range of this radio. I'll be stopping in every seven to eight days to debrief your Council on our activities in your area."

"Will Abraham be with you?" Sasha asked hopefully.

The general nodded. "Yes. Every other time we stop in, we'll collect the tithe, which I then send on with four of my soldiers to Nashville."

[*]

Daryl walked the general to the gate, behind the truck and other soldiers, including Abraham. When his men and the truck were out, General Boone paused at the open gate and turned to Daryl. "The king asked me to deliver you this." He motioned back to one of his soldiers, who jogged through the gate again with a bottle of bourbon, which he put in the general's hands before disappearing. The general turned it and studied the brown liquid. "Good stuff. My youngest daughter collects these horses." He pointed to the bronze horse figurine on top of the bottle's cork. "She's about your girl's age. Twelve?"

"Mhm. Thirteen."

General Boone handed Daryl the bourbon. "My youngest son is thirteen. Irish twins, they called him and his sister."

Daryl held the bottle at his side by its neck. "How many kids you got?"

"I had six."

"Damn."

"One died of the superflu during the Outbreak. One was, as I told you, killed by the Pillagers, along with my wife. Four still live. My eldest living son turned sixteen and joined Merle's army last month, but he didn't want to be in my unit. Doesn't want to be under his father's thumb. My eldest girl is twenty-five. She's the one who just had the baby. It's _my_ grandson who needs the formula."

"Hell didn't ya just say so?"

"I wasn't sure it would make a difference. So I wanted it to appear as if you didn't have a choice. But you people seem...human. Most people these days, they only care about their own immediate tribe. It's quite a thing your brother and Queen Esther have accomplished, building something from all these disparate camps, keeping them protected so they can farm, scavenge, hunt, and grow. It helps to have a common enemy, I suppose."

Daryl wondered what they would do when that enemy was destroyed. When the Pillagers were gone, and their camp had scavenged enough ammo of their own to fight off the next herd, would the Council decided to continue their arrangement with Merle, or would they strike out on their own again? And if they did want to strike out on their own, would Merle _allow_ them? "Anyone ever leave the kingdom?" he asked.

"Not yet. There was that one camp that didn't accept protection in the first place. I suppose you've heard what happened to it."

"Mhm."

"The thing is, there will always be monsters, even if we destroy every last Pillager. A tithe for some peace of mind...it's not that much to ask, is it? And the tithe feeds the army, as well as some women and children in the royal court. It isn't as if the king and queen are simply hoarding it all. Even when the Pillagers are destroyed, my fiefdom will keep paying the tithe. Of course, they can have confidence that one of their own is a general with some influence. But...perhaps one of your own will be one day, too."

"Abraham?"

"He's an excellent solider. All promotions have to be approved by the king and queen, but I've submitted my recommendation that he become a captain. We only have four ranks."

The general glanced back at his men, who were milling around the Humvees and truck, talking or smoking. Abraham was on the radio. He looked at Daryl again. "Karen...she doesn't have a man, does she?"

"Ya'd have to ask her that."

"I did."

"Then ya know."

"She said she didn't."

"Then why ya askin' me?"

The general ran a hand across his mouth. "About a month after my wife died, my unit was sent to collect a tithe from the RV fiefdom. That was before I was transferred to a different jurisdiction. It's a fenced-in RV park. My troops camped there overnight. A woman invited me to her bed, and...who was I to deny her? I was newly single and in need of comfort. The next morning, however, when their supply runners returned home, I learned she had a husband."

"What he do to ya?"

" _Nothing._ "

"What?" Daryl asked.

"It turns out they practice polyandry in that camp. But I would have liked to have been _informed_. I felt like an adulterer, even if she didn't."

"Polly what?"

"All of the women have two men. Some have three. A husband at home, and one or two other men in the army who are on furlough at different times."

"Hell kind of man agrees to share his woman?"

The general shrugged. "It's a new world. Men outnumber women two to one. Who am I to judge? But me, personally, I don't want to make that mistake again."

"Well, Karen ain't married. But that don't mean ya can expect her to jump in bed with ya neither."

The General chuckled. "I have hopes, not expectations."

"General," Abraham called as he walked back in through the gate. "Colonel Derringer called in over the radio. He's reporting a Pillager sighting in the east quadrant. Unit of six in a townhouse subdivision. They're siphoning gas from all the cars in the parking lot into storage tanks."

"Are there any innocents at risk?"

"The subdivision doesn't appear to be inhabited. Colonel Derringer is watching from a distance."

"Tell him to to shoot out their tires and then fight when they exit on foot. I don't want him blowing up the supplies like he did last time."

"Yes, sir."

Abraham departed and General Boone returned his attention to Daryl. "I best get going." He began to leave, but then turned back. "Oh, your brother said to say, when I gave you the bourbon, let me see if I can remember this…" The general looked up for a moment and then back down. "Sorry he couldn't be here to share that bottle with you, but he's an old yellow dog, and he's busy learning new tricks. At least I _think_ that's what he said. Does that make any sense to you?"

Daryl smiled. "Little bit, yeah."

General Boone held out his hand. "Nice doing business with you."

Daryl shook. A moment later, he was swinging the gate shut behind the departing army.


	88. Drinking Daryl's Bourbon

"I am uncertain as to what expectation you have for my activities beyond the cabin at this particular hour of the evening," Eugene told Maggie as she was forcing him out the door of their shared cabin.

Carol, along with Michonne, Karen, Rosita, Sasha, and Darlene, had already stepped inside for a "girls' night" and were watching this scene unfold. Lilly had declined on the excuse of being tired (though most likely she had a better evening planned with Dr. S), Beth was feeling "under the weather," Tara was in the watchtower, and Haley was on foot patrol. Still, seven was about perfect for a party.

"Mateo and Glenn are already gone," Maggie told him, resorting to lightly kicking his shins. "Just get out and find something to do!"

Eugene, looking like a sad puppy, bent his head, turned, and walked down the two porch stairs to the dirt road as Maggie shut the front door behind him.

[*]

Daryl wasn't quite sure how he'd ended up home alone with the kids while his wife was out partying. He wondered if that's what happened in those polly-andee communities (is that what the general had called it?) – if the women went out partying while the men stayed at home making jiffy pop popcorn on the wood stove for a bunch of kids huddled around the living room watching _The Goonies_.

Then again, he'd probably rather be doing this than be out partying. The great thing about kids was that when they had each other, they left adults alone. They didn't expect you to _socialize_. He could just sit at the kitchen table and fiddle with his bow all evening, clean his gun, and listen to their laughter floating to his ears like the best kind of music.

Now he plopped the bowl of popcorn down on the coffee table and couldn't help but smile when curly-haired Luke exclaimed, "You have _popcorn_ here?"

Damn that kid was cute. He'd probably been a model for one of those children's clothing catalogs, the ones where the boys all wore khaki and polos and brightly-colored button-down shirts, the ones for rich families who never had to shop at Salvation Army thrift stores and garage sales.

"Yes," Sophia said, in a tone that suggested she was in charge in this cabin, "but only one cup a piece!" She took the stack of paper cups Daryl had also set down next to the popcorn and began passing them out. Mika plunged her cup greedily into the bowl and filled it to the brim like a child who hadn't eaten in weeks.

"You can have my cup if you like," Patrick told Sophia. "I already brushed my teeth." That boy was sitting a little too close to his daughter on the couch. Hell, their knees were almost touching. And why had _brushed his teeth_ before coming to watch a movie with Sophia? What did he think was going to happen here? Daryl glared at him suspiciously. Patrick didn't seem to notice. He was too busy scooping up a cup of popcorn for Sophia and handing it to her.

"Dad, can you get us all some water? Or lemonade? Do we have any of that can left?"

"I ain't yer servant, Soph."

"I'll get it for you, Sophia," Patrick said eagerly and sprung up.

"Sit down!" Daryl ordered. "I'll get the damn lemonade!"

Patrick sat back down hesitantly.

"Oooooooh!" Luke said. "You said a bad word!"

"This the first time you ever heard a bad word?" Daryl grumbled.

Luke got a solemn look on his little face. He stared straight into the popcorn bowl. "No. My dad said a lot of bad words when he and my brother got bit."

Fuck. What did he say to that?

He didn't have to say anything, because Mika, who was sitting on the floor next to Luke, wrapped her arm around his shoulders and squeezed him tight. "I lost my sister and mom and dad, too."

Meghan, who was on the other side of him, did the same thing, until the boy was engulfed in a two-girl hug. "I lost my dad when I was three, before all this."

"Me too," Patrick told him. "I lost my entire family."

Carl, who was in the arm chair, offered, "My mom died. She had two babies in her when she did. They were going to be my little brothers. Or sisters. We all know what you're going through, kid."

Daryl used the full amount of powder to make the lemonade, no watering it down this time. He made sure it was extra sweet, and he gave Luke the fullest glass.

[*]

The women were settled around Maggie's kitchen table and, after a small glass each, about to start their second bottle of wine. Carol popped the cork free.

"Thanks for giving us your monthly ration of wine, Maggie," Sasha said. "We might even get buzzed tonight."

"On less than two glasses?" asked Rosita. She lay down a card. "Speak for yourself, lightweight."

"C'mon," Darlene said as Carol began to pour the second bottle into the six glasses. "You ain't still pissed off at Sasha for stealing your boyfriend, are you? I mean, I think we can all agree that was a bitch move, but, let's be honest, they're a good match. We can all see that now."

Rosita picked up her glass. "I'm so over that. I've got Roscoe now."

Darlene drew a card. "Well I'm glad you figured out Roscoe's a catch."

" I think he may actually _love_ me," Rosita said. "Or at least, he _acts_ like he does, which is even better."

"Do you usually date older men?" Karen asked as Carol set down the empty bottle of wine and took her seat again.

"I like _experience_ ," Rosita replied.

"Experience is overrated." Maggie took a card from the draw pile. "I've had older men in the past. They're set in their ways. But you can _train_ the inexperienced ones. Trust me."

"Glenn's sweet," Darlene conceded. "And he's become _quite_ the man."

"Hey, that's _my_ man you're talking about," Maggie warned her.

"I'm just saying, I ain't got nothing against a young man. T-Dog's ten years younger than me."

"Really?" Karen asked. "You don't look more than thirty-two."

"Did I ever tell you I love you, Karen?" Darlene asked.

Karen chuckled. "What do you think, Carol? Which are better, younger men or older men?"

Carol lay down a set and then discarded. "Well, I dipped down five years, but I'd probably have taken Daryl at any age from 32 to 52."

"Why not 31?" Michonne asked as she drew and then discarded.

"Well, then I'd feel like a cougar."

Everyone laughed.

"How about you, Karen?" Darlene asked. " _Older_ , right? I hear Captain Boone is a _grandfather_."

"He's only forty-nine," Karen insisted. "He got married right out of college. And I turn forty next year."

Michonne lay down a set. "Well, I think what inquiring minds want to know is – how did the _tea party_ go?"

"Was this ladies' night just a set-up to grill me?" Karen asked.

"Maybe," Carol admitted. "But there's wine. And after wine…" She leaned over and pulled the bottle of Blanton's out of a bag she'd set at the foot of her chair.

Darlene gasped. "Is that bourbon?"

"Merle gave it to General Boone to give to Daryl," Carol said.

"And Daryl _let_ you bring it to share with us?" Michonne asked.

"He probably thinks it's going to get him laid tonight," Maggie said.

Carol set the bourbon on the table. "And he's probably right."

There were giggles all around.

Maggie rose to get glasses for the bourbon.

"So….?" asked Carol, looking over the table at Karen.

"So…the general and I had tea. And we talked for an hour and a half."

"About what?" Sasha asked.

"About our camps, and our past lives, and literature."

"Literature?" Michonne asked skeptically.

"He did say he used to be an English teacher," Darlene noted. "I thought for sure he'd be military or FBI. He looks like Fox Mulder."

"He looks _nothing_ like Fox Mulder," Karen insisted.

"Well he's a fox anyway," Michonne said.

Maggie snorted. "Don't let Rick hear you say that."

"Who's Fox Mulder?" Carol asked.

Everyone looked at her like she'd grown a second head. "It has something to do with TV, doesn't it?"

"Yes," Sasha told her. "The X-Files?"

Carol shook her head. "We didn't have cable."

"It wasn't on cable," Rosita said.

"Well, I never really watched much TV." Ed had watched countless hours of NASCAR and football, and Carol had considered that her chance to make herself scarce and have some peace and quiet to herself.

"Well I think he looks like Coach Taylor from Friday Night Lights," Sasha said. "Except his hair is graying more. You know that show, Carol?"

Carol shook her head.

"Well, he _was_ a coach," Karen said. "Girls' volleyball though."

Michonne snorted. "That's really hard to imagine."

"His daughter was on the team," Karen explained. "And they needed a coach."

"I think General Boone looks like Hugh Jackman," Rosita said. "But with more gray in his hair and blue-green eyes."

"His eyes are actually hazel," Karen told her. "They have blue, green, yellow, _and_ brown. It depends on the light."

"Oh?" Sasha asked. "So you were doing a lot of gazing into his eyes were you?"

Karen smiled, shrugged, and took a sip from the ounce of bourbon Carol had poured her.

"So…." Sasha peered at Karen over her hand. "What _else_ happened?"

" _Nothing_ happened," Karen insisted. "But he did ask if he could _see me again_ when he comes to brief the Council in a week."

" _See you_?" Maggie repeated. "You gotta love that old-school phrasing."

"Where's he going to see you?" Michonne asked.

"Probably in my bedroom."

Carol almost sputtered out her first sip of bourbon. Everyone laughed.

"You know," Karen told them, "these celebrities y'all are comparing him to look nothing like each other."

"Do you think any celebrities survived?" Michonne asked.

"I doubt it," Rosita said. "They're used to people doing everything for them."

"Well, I don't know." Carol set down her bourbon, which had burned semi-pleasantly going down on the second sip. " _I_ survived."

"Yeah, exactly," Darlene told her. "You were used to doing everything for other people."

"But I didn't have any skills."

"Sure," Michonne said. "Other than cooking and sewing and tailoring and laundering and all those things we need in the end times, you had _no_ skills. Did I mention I was a _lawyer_?"

Carol chuckled. The game, the conversation, and the drinking, went on, and eventually the cards were abandoned for only the talking and the booze. Carol felt a warm glow, and she didn't think it was just the bourbon. She thought, maybe, it was friendship.

[*]

Patrick took Carl, Luke, and Meghan home in a golf cart.

"I'll keep guard while you drive," Carl told him solemnly as they were heading out the front door. He unlatched the strap of his holster and placed a hand on the butt of his pistol.

"Cool!" Luke said. "When do I get to carry a gun?"

"When you learn to use one," Carl told him on their way out. "Zach will teach you."

"And I'll teach ya to hunt," Daryl told him. "If'n ya want me too."

"Yeah!" Luke said. "Cool!"

Daryl closed the door behind them and turned to Mika and Sophia. "A'ight. Get ready for bed, girls."

[*]

Somehow a game of truth or dare broke out.

"If you had to sleep with one man in this camp who wasn't your own," Michonne asked with a slight slur. "Who would it be?" She pointed to Karen. "You start."

"Oh God," Karen said. "I don't find any of these men attractive."

"What?" all of the other women asked in unison.

Karen chuckled. "Just kidding. I find all of your men equally attractive. I want to fuck them all!" She held up her glass and the bourbon sloshed within it. "Is that better?"

"Much better!" Michonne agreed. "Your turn to answer." She stabbed a finger in Carol's direction.

"What was the question?"

"Sex." Rosita swirled her glass. "Sex, sex, sssssex!"

"Daryl!" Carol exclaimed.

"He's _your_ man," Michonne told her. "The questions was - " Her glass hung suspended in midair. "Wait. What was the question?"

"It was your question!" Sasha exclaimed.

Michonne chortled. She sipped some more bourbon.

"The question," Rosita slurred, "was whose man would you fuck? I think we all know Sasha's answer to that."

"C'mon now!" Darlene exclaimed. "You know, I was on your side when this all started, but you got to let that shit go!"

"I'm just _joking_ ," Rosita insisted. "I'm a little drunk. I don't even want Abraham anymore. He's so bulky! He's like the state puff marshmallow man. Arggg….Argggg…" Rosita held out her arms on either side and swayed in lumbering fashion, "Look at me. Walking down the streets of New York, all full of marshmallow."

Sasha burst into laughter.

Rosita burst into laughter.

They leaned over the table laughing at each other.

"Well," Sasha said when she'd recovered herself, "Roscoe looks like – "

"- Like what?" Rosita asked.

"I don't know," Sasha admitted. "Like a country music star. I don't even know _why_ I'm not attracted to him. What's not to like?"

"Nothing!" Rosita insisted. "There's nothing not to like about Roscoe. Except…I don't know."

"What?" Sasha and Karen, wide-eyed and smiling, asked in unison.

Rosita continued to slur slightly as she spoke. "He's very considerate in bed. Gentle and ladies-first and all that shit. But just once…I wish he'd throw me up against the goddamn wall and ravish me."

"Then tell him that," Maggie said soberly. "Communication is very important in the bedroom. I'm always telling Glenn what I want."

"I just don't think it's _in_ him to do that," Rosita said. "It's all right. Everything else is great."

"What about Rick?" Karen asked. "Michonne hasn't said _anything_ about Rick."

Darlene leaned over the table toward Michonne. "Do y'all use his handcuffs?"

Michonne held up a finger and waved it unsteadily. "I'm not going to answer that. But if I _were_ going to answer that…of course we do!"

"On _him_ or on _you_?" Carol asked. Then she noticed the bottle of bourbon. A thin, light layer of brown liquid circled the very bottom. "Did we drink that _entire_ bottle?"

"Y'all did," Maggie told them. "And the boys are home now."

"And I think it's time for me to drive you ladies home," came Glenn's voice. He was standing at the entryway between the kitchen and living room. "Because God knows you can't walk."

"I can," Carol insisted. She stood up abruptly to prove him wrong, and then seized the table for support.

Glenn smiled. "Your cabin is two miles up the road from ours, Carol. I'll pull around the RTV."

[*]

Daryl whispered his last goodnight and shut the door of the girls' bedroom. Sophia had been gracious about allowing Mika into her space. Daryl thought maybe she'd never been as thrilled about sleeping alone as she'd pretended. It was a scary world. It was good to have company.

He was glad Mika didn't seem afraid of him. That was probably because she'd bonded with Sophia and just accepted Sophia's opinion of him. But Mika had asked him to read her an extra chapter tonight. She'd said, "My dad used to do all the voices." He couldn't "do all the voices," so Sophia had "done the voices," while he sat half on her bed, one foot on the floor, Sophia leaned against his shoulder, sharing the book with him, comfortably relaxed against him, like he was her real father and had been forever.

Damn he was exhausted. Something about being in charge of a brood of kids just wiped him out. He crawled right into bed, leaving the front door unlocked for Carol.

He awoke when he felt a warm body press against his. A warm, _stark naked_ body. Carol began to rub up and down against the black boxers that clothed his ass.

"The hell?" he asked groggily as he rolled over.

"Fuck me," she said.

"What?"

"Fuck me," she slurred. "I want you to fuck me hard."

"Yer drunk, woman. And ya ain't gonna remember it in the mornin'."

"So. It's not like I'm going to _regret_ it either. And you'll have fun. C'mon, Daryl. Fuck me. Fuck me. Pleeeeeeasssse!"

"Think yer gonna pass out half way through, and I'll feel like an asshole finishin'. So…no."

"But I'm sooo horny!"

"Yeah, well, now ya know how it feels." He rolled onto his side, away from her, and closed his eyes.

"You're mean! Meany McMeanerson."

That was her last protest. A moment later, she was passed out.

[*]

Carol buried her face under the pillow when the sunlight streamed in and went back to sleep. She awoke later when the bed shifted and pulled herself into a sitting position with a groan. Daryl handed her a cup of coffee. "Thanks," she muttered and sipped the thick, bitter brew.

"Ya remember what ya said to me last night?"

"Not exactly. Why?"

"Don't matter. Where's the rest of that bourbon Merle gave me? Ya leave it at Maggie's?"

"Uh…We might have…drunk it all?"

"Might of?"

"We did," she confessed.

He looked peeved. "Ya said ya was only gonna share _half_ the bottle."

Carol lowered her cup and grimaced. "I'm so sorry, Daryl. I only meant to let everyone have two drinks. I don't know what happened. I know your bother gave you that. I'm so – "

Daryl held up his hand to stop her. "- 'S all right. Just booze. Ya have fun?"

Relieved he only seemed mildly annoyed, she smiled and nodded. "I think I'm going to pay for it though."

"Mhmhm. Don't make it a habit."

"What? I've been drunk _twice_ since you've _known_ me. That's hardly at risk of becoming a habit! We don't even have enough rations to _make_ it a habit."

He chewed on his bottom lip, not in that nervous way of his, but in that trying-to-repress-something way of his. His eyes were darker than usual. _Was_ he angry?

"What's this really about?" she asked.

"My mamma was a drunk. Had to take care of her when I's a boy. Clean up her vomit. Had to take care of myself. Feed myself."

"Ah." Carol looked down at the dark pools rippling through her coffee. "Daryl…" She looked up at him. "It won't happen again."

"Don't care if it happens again. Glad ya had fun. Ain't sayin' it cain't never happen again. Just …promise ya ain't gonna make it a _habit_."

"I promise." She smiled at him teasingly. "Although, you know, the last time _you_ were drunk, you crawled into my bed without permission. You remember that? At the hotel? We weren't together then."

"Mhm, yeah, well the last time _you_ were drunk, _'fore_ this time, ya called me sexy and grabbed me by the belt buckle and tried to yank me in bed. We weren't together then neither."

"I did?"

"Mhm."

"But…you didn't take me up on it?"

"Course not! Ya'd of regretted it."

"I'm not sure I would have." She smiled. "Though I appreciate you being honorable."

"Ya would of. Trust me. Ain't like ya jumped headfirst into this thing."

"It's not like you did, either," she told him. She winced. "What did I do _this_ time?"

He smiled.

"What?" she cried.

He smiled more broadly. "Ain't sayin'."

She glared at him over the coffee cup and took another sip. "Did we _do_ anything?"

"Nah. But I reckon that was damn good bourbon. Not that I'll ever know."

"I'll make it up to you, I promise," she told him. "Tonight. Whatever you want."

He smirked. " _Whatever_ I want?"

"Well, within _reason_." Daryl was always reasonable in his wants. She wasn't concerned about giving him a blank check.

"A'ight. Be thinkin' 'bout it. All day." He leaned in and kissed her.

"Going hunting now?" she asked.

"Carol, I done gone already. It's noon."

"What?" she'd only gone back to sleep for an _hour_ , hadn't she?

"Didn't bag nothin' but squirrel, but me and Haley are this close to another deer." He held two fingers an inch apart. "Both Mika and Soph are done with all their schoolin' for the day. Soph just got home from helpin' Greg. Learned how to replace a headlight. Lunch is on the table."

Carol smiled. "Thank you."

"Yeah. Yer gonna thank me _tonight_."

Carol put a hand on his cheek and kissed him again. And that night, she did _thank_ him. Profusely. Twice.

[*]

Over the next few days, the refugees made themselves at home in the camp. Mika took to Sophia like a big sister, and because she did, she began to accept Daryl and Carol as her family, though she still cried herself to sleep some nights.

"Ain't never gonna be a daddy to that girl," Daryl told Carol in bed one night. "Ain't like it is with Soph. With Soph…dunno…somethin' there from the start. 'Member her namin' toads back at the quarry camp and thinkin' – I ain't gonna let shit happen to that girl."

"Your relationship with Mika will be different," Carol said. "But that doesn't mean it won't be important. Be what you can be for her. She needs a family."

"I's tryin'."

"I know you are. So am I." She leaned over and kissed his cheek.

Mika began to act like a mother hen around Luke, who did not take to it well, being only two years younger, and then around little Andre, who adored her the way he adored all his pretty "aunties." Maybe having someone to be protective of made Mika feel more in control and less frightened of the world herself.

Patrick showed Luke the ropes around the camp, worked with him on the trash collection, and _tried_ to play big brother to him, but it was Carl Luke followed like a little puppy, begging to hold his knife and see his gun. Carl would take out the bullets, check the chamber, and let him hold the revolver and dry fire it. Once, he even let little Luke wear his hat.

Luke did the same thing to Daryl, following him about and begging to try out his crossbow. Daryl finally relented, but the boy couldn't manage it well with his little arms. The arrow went into the ground, and the butt of the crossbow went into his chin, leaving a light bruise. "Maybe I'll wait until I'm older," Luke conceded and Daryl said, "Yeah, but ya got balls kid."

Father Gabriel held Eucharist at the park on his first Sunday morning there, and a handful of people attended –including Carol and Sophia. Roscoe went, Carol suspected, just so he could play guitar and sing hymns, and Rosita listened from the watchtower. Greg, who had been a regular church-goer in the old world, showed up. At one point, he tried to clap along to the singing, seeming to forget he was missing half of one arm. Karen and Beth also attended. Their voices complimented Roscoe's well and made for a tiny three-person choir. Lilly brought Meghan, and T-Dog rounded out the congregation.

Father Gabriel seemed slightly disappointed in the attendance, but then he said something peculiar about it being "more than he deserved." The sermon was equally peculiar, about Lot casting out his daughters to the hungry mob to keep his door from being broken down. "I wonder if Lot regretted that," Father Gabriel said. "Sacrificing others to save himself."

"Ya ain't Catholic are ya?" Daryl asked Carol when she came home from church that morning, about the same time he came home from hunting.

"No," she said with a slight smile, "but neither is Father Gabriel."

"Hell is he then?"

"Episcopalian."

"Mhm."

Carol suspected Daryl neither knew, nor cared, about the difference. "I liked the music," she told him. "And the prayers. The sermon was odd."

"At least it was short," Sophia said.

"Sophia and I are going again next week," Carol told him.

"Want me to go with ya?" Daryl asked.

"Only if you want to."

"Don't."

"Then don't."

"Ya sure?" he asked.

"I'm not going to _make_ you go to church, Daryl. Although, Esther was right. Father Gabriel does have a certain glow to his skin."

"Fine. I'll go."

Carol laughed.

The next day, in the late afternoon, General Boone rolled up to their front gate again, and Abraham boomed, "Bob's your uncle!"

The gates rolled open and the Humvees rolled in – three of them this time – and with them came news, both good and bad.


	89. Daryl's Duty

General Boone lay his briefcase on the desk of the study and turned to address the assembled Council. "Captain Ford will be joining us today for the briefing." He motioned to Abraham.

Sasha raised an eyebrow. "Captain?" she said. " _Already_?"

Abraham shrugged, but he couldn't repress his smile.

The general reported that the Pillagers had driven the surviving remnant of the Cleveland herd back in their direction. "It looks like they killed off about ten percent before driving the herd back at us. The good news is we've redirected the remnant yet again. We decided not to kill any off this time before leading them back toward the Pillagers. I almost lost my runner doing it, but thankfully he made it out alive."

"Why didn't you kill more of the herd?" Sasha asked.

The general nodded to Abraham.

"It was my idea," Abraham explained. "The Pillagers will likely expend a lot of ammunition shooting at the herd. We're trying to get them to reduce their arsenal. They recovered a lot of ammo when they stole that Walmart truck from us."

"You plan to attack their outpost?" Carol asked.

"No," the General replied. "I don't like the offensive position. We are doing everything we can to _weaken_ that outpost, however, to make it less of a threat to your fiefdom and mine. In addition to getting the Pillagers to use more of their ammo, we're cutting off their trade lines with the other Pillager outposts using landmines. So if you go out scavenging, avoid them." He snapped open the briefcase, pulled out a map, and handed it to Carol as if he thought she might be the one in charge.

Daryl looked at the map over her shoulder.

"We have more news," Abraham said ominously. "A group of thieves snuck into a fiefdom seventy miles south of here," General Boone began. "The Smith Plantation. It's under General Sanchez's patrol, but they must have maneuvered around his checkpoints unnoticed. They shot the night guard from a long distance, likely with a silenced rifle, scaled the fence, and opened the gate from the inside."

"They robbed the armory and the pantry," Abraham explained. "General Sanchez's men spied them ten miles from the fiefdom. He didn't know then they'd robbed the place. He tried to stop them initially simply to question them -

"- As the army does anytime someone enters the borders of the Kingdom," General Boone interrupted.

"But they opened fire," Abraham continued. "They were even tossing grenades."

"Sanchez's unit manged to shoot out the tires of one of the three trucks," General Boone narrated, "and recover those supplies for the fiefdom. But the other two trucks escaped with the rest of the community's goods. No one was caught alive to interrogate, unfortunately."

"Pillagers?" Daryl asked.

"I doubt it," replied the General. "The Pillagers have never been so subtle, and there were two women involved. The Pillagers don't have women except as..." He cleared his throat. A line jumped in his jaw. "Anyhow, we don't believe they're Pillagers."

"How many people ya talkin' about?"

"General Sanchez's men killed three in the gunfight," Abraham answered. "Four men and two women escaped in the two trucks, but they may have a much larger camp they went back to. I would recommend enhancing our watch and wearing armor when on patrol at night. They fled north. In _this_ direction, so their camp may be located between ours and the Smith Plantation."

"We don't _have_ armor," Carol said. "We have the sleeves I made, but those are for walkers."

"I was hoping the core group of men I brought with me today could camp _here_ for the night. Including Abraham," said General Boone while casting a knowing look toward Sasha. "We ask only a roof over our heads. And…well…" He turned toward Carol, "Karen said you're a fantastic chef. If you would provide us with a real, homemade, hot dinner, instead of this damn storage food we've been eating all week, we'll repay you by leaving you with three bulletproof vests, three helmets, and two bottles of bourbon."

The Council exchanged glances.

"Throw in 3,000 rounds of ammo," Maggie said.

"Absolutely not," the general replied.

"Then 2,000."

"No, ma'am."

"1,000?" Maggie ventured.

"I'll throw in a single box of 9 mm."

"Two boxes," Maggie insisted.

"One of 9 mm and an extra bottle of bourbon, the cheap stuff. That's my final offer."

Carol asked the general and Abraham to step outside while they conferred. They agreed they should quarter the troops – the discussion was now as to _where_.

"Let's put the general on the couch of the Big Cabin," Darlene said, "'cause we all know Karen's just gonna end up inviting him into her bedroom tonight anyway."

"Abraham's with me," Sasha said, "and he knows these men. More importantly, they know _him._ So let's just put them in our cabin. Maybe we could move Patrick and Luke up to your cabin for the night, Carol, so the soldiers can have the boys' room and the living room."

"Sure," Carol said. "We've got that pull-out couch in the living room."

"Woah, woah," Daryl said. "Don't think Patrick should be sleepin' in our livin' room."

"Why not?" Carol asked.

"Ya know," he hissed.

"You mean because you think he's sweet on Sophia?"

Darlene and Maggie chuckled and Daryl glowered.

"I don't think he'll be sneaking into our daughter's bedroom, sweetheart," Carol told him. "Relax. And it's probably good not to have Luke around a bunch of foul-mouthed soldiers tonight."

"Because Daryl's clean-mouthed?" Darlene asked, and Maggie and Sasha snorted.

"So all in favor?" Carol asked. A chorus of ayes went up, though Daryl's was considerably less hearty than the others.

[*]

Carol was the first out of the cabin after the meeting concluded and was headed to the pantry to figure out a new dinner menu given that they would have extra men, when she heard the general call, "Councilwoman!"

For a moment, she didn't realize he was talking to her. No one had ever called her _Councilwoman_ before. That sounded like someone important. But when he was on her heels, she realized he did mean her. "Yes?" she asked when he was beside her.

"Is Karen about? I haven't seen her since entering your gates."

Carol smiled. "She's on duty in the watchtower."

"Ah. Do you happen to know when she gets off work?"

Carol laughed at the question, because it was almost _normal_ , in an old way, as if the world hadn't changed so dramatically. "In an hour."

"Good." He nodded. "Good. Good." He turned to a soldier who was loitering about the edge of the porch of the Big Cabin, a tanned, thirty-something man with short, heavy, wavy black hair, a finely sculpted masculine jaw, but thick, feminine lashes curling over his mocha brown eyes. "Omar." The soldier stubbed out his cigarette on the rail and snapped immediately to attention. "Go up to that tower and bring that woman a vest and a helmet. No one should be exposed like that with these sniper thieves about."

"Yes, sir." Omar hurried down the porch stairs and toward one of the parked Humvees that was in the road a little ways down from the big cabin. Haley was walking by the Humvee and the soldier turned to watch her making her way up the hill. "Good morning, ma'am!" he called after her.

Haley chuckled, half turned, and said good morning back before the smiling solider began pulling armor out of the vehicle.

"Do you think they might attack in the daytime?" Carol asked.

"I doubt it," General Boone replied. "It's hard to sneak in during the day. But I'd rather not take chances."

Daryl was now clamoring down the cabin stairs, and the general turned his attention to him. "I want to do a vulnerability assessment with you, around the perimeter of your camp. And check for tracks. Make sure some group of these thieves aren't watching you."

Daryl nodded.

[*]

The general didn't seem to be looking for vulnerabilities. He was plucking wildflowers. "Hell's that for?" Daryl asked.

"Karen."

"Hmmm." Daryl hadn't brought Carol a flower since he'd brought that black-eyed susan in the beer bottle. She wasn't even his wife then. Maybe he should pluck some, but then Carol might think he was just doing it because General Boone had done it, which would be true.

"I was in high school the last time I actively tried to get a girl to like me," General Boone said as he yanked two bloodroots from the ground. "I think I did fairly well. It took five more years, but she eventually agreed to marry me. But I don't even know if it's done the same way any - " He reached suddenly for the knife on his belt with his left hand. It wasn't until the blade glinted in the late afternoon sun that Daryl heard the sounds that had inspired the general to draw.

General Boone didn't let go of the bouquet while he stabbed the emerging walker in a quick, downward thrust, but blood and guts splattered all over the flowers. He cursed and tossed the bouquet on the fallen walker before pulling out his knife from its brain. He wiped his knife flat across the leg of his camo pants, first one side, then the other, and sheathed it. Then he began collecting wildflowers again.

How the hell had he heard that walker before Daryl did? "Ya weren't really an English teacher, were ya?"

"Yes, I was." He had a small bouquet of purple coneflower now and walked back to the cluster of bloodroots.

"What else were ya?" asked Daryl, following. "'Fore that?"

"Well, after college I went to work for the Border Patrol. Six years, and I hated three of them. So I slowly worked on my teacher's certification the last two, quit, taught history in Texas for two years, and then moved back home to Tennessee to teach English."

"So for six years, ya hunted people for a livin'?" Daryl asked.

"I guess you could describe it that way."

Once the general had his flowers, he started paying more attention to the fence and the terrain, looking for vulnerabilities, heavy cover, places he thought thieves might be most likely to enter. "You've done well here," he said. He pointed to a walker caught up in the pikes. "Clever idea, the pikes. Thieves aren't going to be able to scale that easily. They'll have to breach at a gate."

"At night, we'll put a man in the stand on each of the gates. One in the tower,"

"Help me track them," General Boone said.

"What?"

"I'm leaving Colonel Derringer in charge up here, with Captain Ford's assistance, and tomorrow morning I'm going down to meet up with General Sanchez to take a look at the scene. He's not very good at tracking. But Karen says _you_ are."

"Cain't ya do it? Just said ya used to hunt people."

"Tracking's not something I've done every day of my life, like you have. I need a second set of eyes. Karen says you're _really_ good."

Daryl sighed.

"It will be a five-day trip at most."

"Dunno."

"If these people are a threat to the Plantation fiefdom, they could be a threat to your people."

"Ain't that what we's payin' Merle for!" Daryl snapped. "To take care of threats?"

"Yes, but..." The general sighed. "The King isn't a god!"

Daryl grunted. "Yeah. Grew up with 'em. Damn well know that."

"And neither am I or this army. I could use your help."

"Thought the whole damn point of payin' was we didn't have to leave our camp to do this shit ourselves."

"I understand your viewpoint, but we _have_ been keeping that herd and the Pillagers at bay. Listen, if you come, help me figure out how much of a threat they actually are, where they are, where they're going...in payment for your services, we'll reduce your tithe by two percent for the next two months."

"Ya got the authority to make that offer?"

"I'm given a certain amount of discretion by the King and Queen. We generals…we're like county executives, in a way."

"How many generals Merle got?"

"Four, including me. We're each responsible for patrolling and protecting one or two fiefdoms and making any necessary deals with the people there. The King and his royal guards attend to the protection of the Parthenon, make supply runs, and patrol the fiefdom closest to him - an amusement park in Bowling Green. So will you come with me?"

"If ya wanted me to go, why didn't ya bring this up at the Council meetin'?"

The general's hazel eyes surveyed the tree line. "Why do you think?"

"Ain't like I don't have to run it by the Council."

General Boone turned to look him in the eyes. "But better to discuss it privately first with your wife, yes?"

"Yeah," Daryl agreed, and was suddenly glad the general hadn't brought it up in front of the entire Council. "Let ya know in the mornin'. One way or the other."

"Good. Good."

"Every damn thing's good good with ya," Daryl muttered as he headed back toward the east gate. He plucked up a handful of flowers on his way in. Maybe they would soften the blow.

[*]

Carol was in the kitchen of the Big Cabin calculating her recipe to feed additional hungry men and measuring flour when Daryl walked in with a fistful of white flowers.

He thrust them out to her. "Here. Picked 'em for ya."

"Thank you. They're pretty." Carol dusted her hands off on her apron. She took them from him, found a vase in one of the cupboards, filled it with water, clipped the stems, and let them fall loosely inside. She set the vase on the kitchen table for now. "I'll take them home after dinner. We're eating outside today on the picnic tables. The weather's nice." She turned to find him leaned back against the kitchen counter. "What's the story behind those flowers? You know all the stories."

"Bloodroots. Colonials used 'em to cure warts."

"Well that's much less romantic than I'd hoped," she said with a teasing smile.

"The roots got a red sap. Indians used it for art."

"I like that better."

She had just walked past him to return to her work when he said, abruptly, "General Boone wants I should go with 'em to track these bastards. "

Carol's stomach flipped and then flopped, but she tried to control her knee-jerk reaction. "Oh," she said with forced calm as she measured flour into a bowl. "And what did you tell him?"

"Nothin'." He turned around to face her and rested his hand on the counter. "Said I'd answer by mornin'."

"Isn't that _his_ job?"

"Says he needs help. Offferin' to cut our tithe by two percent for two months if'n I do it."

"And what do you think?" She added three pinches of salt to her mixture.

"Think I should. Not just for the cut. Help keep 'em from us."

Carol sighed heavily. "How long?"

"Five days at the most."

"I don't want you to," she admitted.

"Think I should. Abraham's out there. All the time. So's General Boone. Keepin' that herd from us. Keepin' the Pillagers from us. I ain't been asked to do but this one thing."

"You've been asked to hunt every day to supply the tithe," she argued.

"Be huntin' anyhow."

"Not as much." She began to dip the bear meat in her powdered mixture, slapping it and turning it angrily.

"Carol," he said, the use of her name striking her as it always did, with the importance of what he was about to say. "Think I oughtta."

She bit down on her back teeth to keep from crying. "If you think it's best," she answered through clenched teeth. She knew he was doing the honorable and necessary thing, but she feared he wouldn't come back. She let go of the meat and looked up at him, trying to control the emotion in her voice. "Be _careful_."

He wrapped an arm around her and jerked her against himself. The flour on her apron coated his shirt. "Promise," he whispered in her ear, and kissed it, then her neck, and finally her lips before he let her go.

[*]

At one of the picnic tables, General Boone sat across from Karen. They were leaned over the table, almost head to head, talking and laughing. His hand covered one of hers on the light brown wood of the table top.

"Think she'll end up moving to his fiefdom?" Carol asked as she glanced at them two tables away.

"Why would she?" replied Glenn, who was sitting next to Daryl, and across from Maggie. Rick and Michonne rounded out their picnic table.

"If they end up together," Maggie explained to Glenn, "which looks like is going to happen."

"Let's hope not," Rick said. "We'll lose our best gardener and a decent guard."

Michonne smirked. "You'll have to take over the gardening."

"I'm busy _farming_ ," Rick reminded her. "It's more manly." He flexed a muscle and Michonne chuckled.

"Maybe Daryl can do the gardening," Carol teased.

Daryl grunted in her direction.

Glenn glanced at Karen and General Boone. "He's gone all the time from home, patrolling, working. He only has a week-long furlough every six weeks. If they _do_ get together, why wouldn't Karen just stay here and he take his furlough _here_?"

"Because he has children," Maggie reminded him. "Would you leave _your_ children at home, the only week you have to visit them out of six, just to go shack up with some woman?"

Glenn seemed to consider this. "Is this a trick question? Are you asking me if you're more important to me than the baby? Because as much as I'm going to love this baby, you win that one. We were first. And we'll still be together when he – or she – is all grown up."

Maggie smiled. "I just mean that if they do end up together, he'll probably want Karen to become a part of his family. He's got four kids back home. And a grandson. And a son-in-law."

Sophia cleared the empty plates from in front of them and set them on the tray Patrick was carrying. They walked off together, talking and smiling.

"They're cute together," Michonne said.

Daryl huffed and swallowed the last sip of his beer.

"Puppy love," Rick said. "But who knows whether it will end up anywhere. Our world is growing. All sorts of changes might happen. We might meet all sorts of people in the coming months." He nodded to a table where the solider Omar was sitting with Haley, Tara, and Mateo. Haley seemed to be smiling at nearly every word Omar said, while Tara looked considerably less pleased.

"She looks jealous," Michonne observed.

"That would suck," Glenn said. "Dating a bisexual woman. She's got _twice_ the options."

"And it doesn't help that these soldiers are so good looking," Maggie agreed.

"Excuse me?" Glenn asked.

"Well just three of them," Maggie clarified.

" _Which_ three?" Glenn asked.

Maggie chuckled. "Don't worry. The father of my child has _no_ competition." She leaned over the table and kissed him.

"Enough with the PDA," Rick insisted.

"You're one to talk," Glenn told him. He glanced at Karen and General Boone again. "You know, he's only going after her because she's the only single woman in our camp and there aren't any in his camp."

"That may well be," Maggie said, "but that doesn't mean they won't end up legitimately falling in love. I mean, that's sort of why I got together with you. You were the only available guy."

"Daryl was available back then," Glenn insisted.

"I don't think so," Maggie said. "Pretty sure he was in love with Carol even back then. Right Daryl?"

"Uhh…Dunno." Daryl flushed a little and sipped his now empty beer, swallowing only air.

General Boone's voice drifted to their ears. Three of his soldiers snapped to attention. They stood up and began taking the dishes from Mika and Luke, who'd been helping Patrick and Sophia.

"Let the kids be kids and play tonight!" the general called over to Carol's table. "My men will clean up."

That was all the encouragement Luke needed to make a beeline straight for the swings.

[*]

The fireplace wasn't lit, because the weather had warmed. It was now in the 70s at night. Before long, they'd have to think about how to stay cool instead of how to stay warm. Carol handed Daryl a cup of tea and sat down next to him on the couch.

Outside the open window, in the yard between their cabin and the park, Carol could see the kids chasing fireflies. Sophia had taken a mason jar outside after punching holes in the top. She'd have herself a firefly lantern tonight, and a bunch of dead bugs in the morning.

She watched as Patrick lowered his closed hands over Sophia's jar and dropped a firefly inside and she tried, but failed, to close the top in time. Sophia and Patrick both laughed, and Mika caught the lightening bug between her cupped hands. She and Luke were filling their own jar together.

"We should get this sofa bed pulled out and made up for the boys," she said.

"Ain't comfortable," Daryl said. "Just let Patrick sleep on the couch and Luke in a sleepin' bag on the rug." They had a rug now, a bear skin one Daryl had made from one his last kill, without the head, as Carol had refused to let him keep that on it – or to mount it on the wall. There were a couple pairs of antlers above the fireplace, however. She could only say no to so many trophies, and she didn't mind the antlers.

Daryl stuck his finger in the warm liquid and stirred the honey deeper into his tea before sucking his finger dry.

"Do you have any idea how maddening that is?" Carol asked him.

"Sorry. Try not to be so filthy."

"Oh. That's not what I meant at all." She smiled, scooted close, and put her feet up on the coffee table. "Be as filthy as you like."

"Yeah?" he asked. Daryl stretched out an arm around her. His breath hot against her ear, he whispered, "Want me to be dirty tonight?"

She chuckled. She was glad he was learning to tease back. "Maybe," she said coquettishly. "Although I'm on watch in thirty minutes. So it depends if you can wait up for me."

"Think I can manage that."

Carol stood up. "Let's go watch the kids." She held her hand out to him.

They went out onto the wrap-around side of the porch and watched the fireflies light up the night with their flashing calls to love. In the park a quarter a mile away, Carol could just make out the shadowy outlines of Karen and General Boone, sitting like kids in the swings, side by side, not swinging, but talking. The general grabbed the chain of Karen's swing, pulled it close, and kissed her.

The laughter of the kids wafted on the spring breeze and tickled Carol's ears like happy music. "Get those thieves," she told Daryl. "With them gone, and the Pillagers contained, we can go on building here." And they could, she believed. They could construct a real future here in this oasis, in this private paradise where hope bloomed in the wilderness. They could build a solid foundation on the ruins of the past.

Daryl slipped his arm around her waist and kissed her head in silent promise.


	90. Meeting General Sanchez

The bullet proof vest was heavy and awkward on Carol's lithe frame, and the helmet was just a little too big as Tara scaled the treehouse watchtower. Carol stripped off the uncomfortable protective gear and handed it over. In the west stand, Haley was replacing Omar, and Tara watched them warily as they talked.

"Do you think he's hitting on her?" she asked.

"Yes," Carol said. "But he'll be gone tomorrow morning."

"And then he'll be back again. You're lucky. Daryl's completely devoted to you. It must be nice to have that."

It _was_ nice, but Carol didn't know what to say. She offered what reassurance she could. "In this world, it's just good to have family. And you have a family. In all of us."

Tara nodded. "Goodnight, Carol."

"'Nite."

When Carol came inside, the boys were asleep in the living room and Sophia and Mika's door was closed. A light seeped out from under her own bedroom door, however. She made her way inside and found Daryl sitting on top of the sheet, the comforter – no longer needed – shed on the floor. The window was open to let the spring night breeze seep through the screen. He was in his tan Wranglers and white muscle shirt and reading a book. She had never stumbled upon him reading before. She stripped down to her undershirt and underwear and sat down next to him. "Are you waiting up for me, or are you waiting up to keep an eye on Patrick?" she teased.

"Both," he admitted.

"Well Patrick's sound asleep. What are you reading?"

He turned the book to her: _Tracking Humans._ "Found it in the Council Chambers."

"I wonder why the previous owner had that?"

He shrugged, closed the book, and put it on the nightstand. He looked her up and down, appreciatively, and his gaze made her blush. "Still want me to be dirty?"

"Actually…no." He was leaving tomorrow, she was worried, and she needed something else. "Tonight, I think maybe I want you to be tender. Is that's okay?"

"Mhmm." He rolled out of bed, dropped his pants, and stepped out of them. She admired his rippling muscles as he pulled his shirt over his head. With his boxers still on, he climbed under the light sheet with her. "Light on?"

"Off."

There was a click, and the room was swaddled in darkness except for the starlight seeping through the window and the fireflies still flashing outside in the warm spring air.

"Nice mood lighting," she said.

His eyes were warm pools in the dim light as he pulled her closely against himself and began to tickle her neck with faint kisses. She could feel him already beginning to harden against her bare thigh. "Take your time," she whispered.

"Mhmhm…." His fingers feathered lightly down her shirt and beneath its hem. "Gonna enjoy ya nice and slow…"

[*]

Daryl emerged early the next morning, expecting the boys to still be asleep. While he found Luke sprawled half in and half out of his sleeping bag on the floor, Patrick and Sophia were making oatmeal together in the kitchen.

"Would you like some, Mr. Dixon, sir?" Patrick asked.

Why was that boy so damn polite all the time? It made it hard not to like him. "Nah. Got to get goin'. Could use some coffee though."

Sophia pointed to the French Press. Daryl poured himself a travel mug, kissed the top of Sophia's head, and said, "Don't wake yer mama. She had a late night. See ya in a few days."

"Be safe," Sophia called after him.

He looked over his shoulder one last time to find that Sophia had already forgotten him, busy as she was making faces out of dry oats on the countertop to amuse a smiling Patrick.

"Luke!" Daryl shouted before he stepped out the door. "Rise and shine!"

Luke groaned and sat up. The grumpy boy ought to keep Patrick and Sophia busy, and keep them from flirting too much with each other.

[*]

Daryl tossed his knapsack down on the floor in the back of the Humvee and climbed in. Omar was driving, and General Boone was riding shotgun with an AR-15 between his knees. The first thirty minutes of the drive was largely silent. General Boone dozed off.

"Late night, sir?" Omar asked with a smirk when the general was finally awake and rubbing his eyes.

"Yes. But not an unpleasant one," the general replied.

"Jackson been complaining about the way you kicked him away from Karen and then bogarted her. His words. Not mine."

"Well you can tell Jackson she's a free woman. And a smart one. It's not my fault she knows a real man when she sees one."

Omar chuckled.

On their way, they encountered a small herd of walkers approaching in the road, about ten, and Daryl asked if he could use the machine gun. General Boone indulged him, handing back a pair of ear protection, which Daryl slid over his head before popping out the hatch and gripping the weapon. He plowed the walkers down quickly and then slid inside.

"Feel good?" General Boone asked.

"Hell yeah."

An hour later, the general told him to hoist the flag as they were nearing the army checkpoint outside the Plantation fiefdom. The starred blue bars shaped like an M on red background went up out of the hatch. "Who made all these flags?" Daryl asked.

"Esther's sister Cleo. I've never met her. Never set foot in the Parthenon myself."

When they arrived fifteen minutes later at the checkpoint, the camo-clad men with M16s in their hands seemed semi-alert – calmed by the presence of the flag but still appearing suspicious. Daryl slung his knapsack on one shoulder and his crossbow on the other and exited the Humvee at the same time as Omar. When General Boone emerged, the men stiffened to full attention, until another man's voice told them, "At ease."

The man who had issued that command began to approach them. He had uneven, wavy black hair, medium brown skin, a thick, handlebar mustache, twinkling brown eyes, and a cleft chin, but none of that was as noticeable as his uniform: a black, tri-cornered hat, tan, half-length pants that ended in high white socks, and a red, button-down uniform coat lined at the cuffs, edges, and placket with blue.

"Hell's he wearin'?" Daryl asked.

"Shhh," Omar whispered. "He gets pissy when you make fun."

"It's a red regimental uniform," General Boone whispered. "He got it from the plantation. I guess they used to do Creek War re-enactments. I think that's the kind the drummer boys wore, but don't tell him that."

"He ain't crazy is he?" Daryl whispered back.

"Well, crazy is relative these days," General Boone answered in a whisper, and then held out his hand, stepped forward, and said in a louder voice, "General Sanchez! Good to see you again!"

General Sanchez shook. "A firm grip as always, general. You know what I say about a firm grip?" General Sanchez let go of his hand. "Firm grip, firm ambition. I heard you're in charge of a second fiefdom now. Moving on up!"

"Indeed, general."

"You like your new charge?"

"They're good people," General Boone replied, "very productive."

"Any good pussy up there?"

Omar repressed a smile, Daryl narrowed his eyes at Sanchez, and General Boone said, "None that would have you, you horny old goat."

Sanchez threw back his head and let out a deep, throaty laugh which ended abruptly. "So why are you here?"

"I'm here to help you find out where those thieves went." General Boone stepped back and patted Daryl on the shoulder. "And I've brought a good tracker with me."

"Looks like you picked him up at a monster truck rally," Sanchez replied with a snarling smirk.

"Well I assure you he's talented."

"The tire tracks go north ten miles from the checkpoint, veer off the highway through the woods, and then disappear through a creek. There's no following them after that."

"Well, we'll just take one more look, shall we?"

"I recovered _forty percent_ of those supplies," General Sanchez told him. "I'll have you know."

"I don't doubt that you did," General Boone replied. "Very well done. We'd like to start at the beginning. Before they even reached the checkpoint. Can you just show us where you think they went over the fence?"

General Sanchez eyed him warily. "Did the _king_ send you?"

"I sent myself. If they're headed north, they're a threat to us now. I need to know the extent of the threat."

"You're not trying to make me look bad, are you, by any chance, James?" General Sanchez asked suspiciously. "Angling for that new vice chancellor position the king just announced?"

Daryl watched this exchange with curiosity.

"I have no interest in being the king's vice chancellor, Jorge, I assure you. I want to stay near my own fiefdom."

"Come along then. But if you find those thieves, you tell the king we worked _together_."

"Of course, of course," General Boone reassured him.

They got back in the Humvee and began to follow General Sanchez to the plantation.

[*]

The historic plantation was surrounded by a high iron fence that had probably been erected sometime in the last six months. The bars were wide enough to see through but not wide enough for a person to slip through. Through them Daryl could spy the old mansion house, servants' quarters, a smokehouse, a cookhouse, barn, carriage house, and old-fashioned well. There were at least three dairy cows roaming the open grass and munching on it, and he could hear the clucking of chickens in the distance. His mouth watered at the thought of fresh milk and eggs.

There were men and women working in one of the distant fields, and a horse pulling an old-fashioned plow, but there was one woman who was not working. She was merely sitting on a decorative, low stone wall that parted to reveal a dirt path to the mansion house. Her long, bare legs were crossed at the knee beneath a tight pair of jean shorts, and she wore a revealing shirt and sandals. She stood when she spied the men and sashayed the few yards to the iron fence, her back arched and her breasts pushed up, nearly popping out of her shirt.

The woman wrapped one hand around an iron bar. Her nails were painted a bright red, and brownish-red lipstick lined her full lips. A light blue eye shadow accented her eyes, and dark mascara curled her short, thin lashes. Daryl couldn't remember the last time he saw a woman wear makeup. Even in the cabins, even with plenty of half-used makeup in the medicine cabinets, he didn't think most women bothered.

"Hello, soldiers," she said through the space in the iron bars. Her voice was low and a bit smoky.

Omar smiled sheepishly. "Hello, ma'am."

"Looking for a good time?"

Omar's face turned a russet color. "Uh…"

"No, ma'am, Private Safar is _not_ looking for a good time," General Boone said. "He's busy working."

"How about you?" She looked Boone over and her eyes fell on a pin on his shirt, one Daryl himself hadn't noticed before, a gold pin in the shape of an M. "Oooh… Also a general? Then you probably get paid in the _good_ bourbon, like General Sanchez. That can buy you the _full service_ special." She cocked her head at Sanchez. "The general can highly recommend it, can't you, sugar?"

"Janice," said General Sanchez, clearing his throat. "These men are working."

She turned her eyes on Daryl next. "You look like only a private. But if you've got chocolate and cigarettes, I can still offer you a little something. What do you say?"

"Married," Daryl grunted.

"Well, she doesn't have to know what you do when you're away from home, does she?" Janice asked him. "The Army still gives you those rations of canned green olives, don't they? I love those. Can't get them here. Two cans, for something lower down on the menu."

"I don't go whorin'," Daryl said.

The woman chuckled. She shook her head. "Honey, every woman's a whore in this world, one way or the other." She cocked her head and swept her light brown eyes over him again, down and then up until she met his eyes without flinching. "You really think your wife's with you because of your charm? What do you pay her? Protection from more violent men and food on her table, am I right?"

Daryl clenched his jaw and his hand opened and closed at his side. If she'd been a man, he would have punched her.

"Any chance at all she'd have been with you in the _old_ world?" the woman asked.

That question hit Daryl like a slap across the face, because he thought the answer was probably no.

"Janice," General Sanchez hissed. "Go on now. These men are _working_."

The woman rolled her eyes, but she let go of the iron bar and stepped away. "Come by and see me later, Jorge," she called over her shoulder as she walked back toward the wall, shaking her ass.

General Boone gave Sanchez a wary, narrow-eyed look.

"Don't you dare judge me," Sanchez told him. "You sanctimonious prick. I could mention your escapades in the RV fiefdom."

"What _escapades_? I slept with one woman because I thought she was single. She didn't ask me for olives or bourbon."

"Come," General Sanchez said. " I'll show you where I found the shell casing from the sniper who took out the guard."

He led them down a gravely dirt path to a stone boulder and pointed behind it. "I found it right there, in that spot, behind this boulder. I assume he crouched behind it and shot into the watch stand."

Daryl walked around the boulder and studied the ground. "See the bottom of yer boot, general?" he asked. "So's I can tell the prints apart?"

Sanchez stretched his leg out with the heel of his boot up. Daryl studied the pattern on the bottom and then the footprints in the dirt and dust by the boulder. Sanchez's were the only prints in sight. Daryl extended a hand toward General Boone. "Borrow yer rifle?"

Boone unshouldered his AR-15 and handed it to him. Daryl crouched down behind the boulder, pointed the rifle, and peered through its scope. He lowered the firearm and stood back up from his crouched position before returning the rifle to General Boone. "Couldn't of made that shot from here."

"Are you a sniper?" General Sanchez asked dismissively.

"No. Just ain't possible. Huge oak tree in the way. Look for yer own damn self."

Sanchez unshouldered his own rifle and copied Daryl's movements. "Well, the guard was most certainly dead," Sanchez insisted when he was done, "shot in the head, and there was a shell casing right here."

"Still have that casin'?" Daryl asked.

Sanchez sighed, drew it out from his coat pocket, and handed it over. Daryl turned it between his fingers, sniffed it, and looked through the center.

"'S old," Daryl said. "Ain't from two nights ago."

"How in the hell can you know that?" Sanchez asked.

" _Smells_ old,"" Daryl explained. "Mud already done worked its way inside." He put his pinky finger in the casing and scraped off a bit to show him. "But it ain't rained here in the last couple days. Can tell from the ground."

He handed the casing to General Boone, who likewise looked it over and said, "Show us where you think their man scaled the fence after shooting the watchman."

General Sanchez led them to the spot. Daryl studied the signs as he walked along the edge of the fence, looking for footprints and disturbed earth. He found one partial print, which again appeared to be Sanchez's, from when he was investigating the scene earlier. "Why here?" Daryl asked.

"Because." Sanchez pointed to a partial footprint still in the dust on the other side of the fence. Not Sanchez's this time. However, it was facing forward. Most men would climb down a fence backward, and jump the last bit. It should be deeper, backward, and not so far away from the fence line.

"Think that's just one of the prints from after they came in through the gate," Daryl said. "Not from climbin' over here." He looked up at the tall fence, which stretched the height of more than two men. He gripped two bars and attempted to scale it before losing his grip and sliding back to the ground. He did it again, and then a third time, making it only an inch higher each time before falling to the ground again.

"And what did you hope to accomplish by that?" General Sanchez asked him.

"Cain't be climbed," Daryl said. "Ain't no perch. Bars straight up. To tall. Slippery."

"Maybe he was thinner and stronger than you."

"Unless yer one hell of a gymnast," Daryl said, "or spiderman" - Jody might have managed it - "ain't gonna make it up and over that thing."

"Perhaps they used a ladder," General Sanchez suggested.

Daryl disturbed the earth with his boot and studied the ground again, walking forward and backward as he did so. "Ain't used no ladder."

"Are you implying they flew?" General Sanchez asked.

"Implyin' someone let 'em in," Daryl said. "From the inside."

"Hogwash!" General Sanchez shouted. "What are you proposing? That someone from this fiefdom shot his _own_ guard, opened his _own_ gate, and then helped these men to _rob_ him? For what reason?"

"Dunno," Daryl said. "Just sayin' what the signs say."

Sanchez tipped his tri-corner hat back on his head. "It doesn't make any sense whatsoever."

"If it was prearranged with someone from the inside," Boone said, "that would help to explain how they got in and out so quickly and quietly, without waking anyone, and without the army noticing them until they hit the checkpoint. Has the guard been buried?"

"It happened two nights ago now, James! Do you think they kept the body? They burned it already and had a service."

"I'd like to question some of the people inside," General Boone said.

"Well that's not going to go over at all well, if you start accusing these people of robbing themselves. The army has to maintain good relations with the fiefdoms, you know. The King and Queen have been very clear about that. The plantation is free to pull out of this arrangement at any time, and this is the Kingdom's most profitable fiefdom."

"We're going to have to talk to them sooner or later. If they have a traitor in their midst, don't you think they'll want to know?"

"I swear you're just trying to make me look bad so you can steal the Vice Chancellor's position from me."

"You can make yourself look bad quite well on your own!" Boone barked. "We both know _why_ you're in this position. Neither of us is going to be Vice Chancellor. I don't _want_ to be. And you're just lucky the King doesn't demote you for letting this theft occur. I'm going to make you look _good_ , Jorge. I'm going to help you clean up this mess up so you don't _lose_ your position as a general."

Sanchez swallowed. He stood straight and tall. "I'll condescend to accept your assistance. But these men don't know you from Adam. If anyone is going to question them, it has to be me."

"We'll do it _together_ ," Boone said decisively. "But first, Daryl and I will see if we can find the thieves' camp, watch them from a distance, get an idea of how many of them there are before we start trying to find who they worked with. It's better if we interview these people from a position of knowledge. I'll be back, maybe tomorrow. Just show us where you lost the thieves after you fought them at the checkpoint."

Sanchez nodded. They got back in the Humvee and followed Sanchez past the military checkpoint to a tree line.

"We didn't go in through the trees after them," Sanchez said through the open window of his truck. "They threw back smoke bombs. We couldn't see a damn thing. After the smoke cleared, we went in and followed the tire tracks, but they disappeared a half mile in, near a creek."

"We'll see what we can find," Boone said.

"It's tight in there. We couldn't get the Humvees in. Their pick-ups scraped up the trees plenty as was. We went in on foot."

"We'll do the same," Boone said.

"Good luck, General." Sanchez saluted Boone and then turned around his vehicle and headed back to the checkpoint.

"Stay by the Humvee," Boone told Omar when they had all exited. "I don't want it stolen. Take care of any walkers that come this way, and whistle if anyone unfamiliar approaches."

"Yes, sir."

Daryl was the first to set foot in the forest, his crossbow drawn, loaded, and ready for danger. He didn't bother with the tire tracks, which appeared and disappeared in the earth, buried by drifting forest debris. Instead, he looked at the paint marks and scratched bark and broken branches on the trees where the pick-ups had plowed through. General Boone behind him, he followed the sign deeper into the forest.


	91. Inside Job

Karen placed a garlic bulb, three fresh tomatoes, and a green pepper on the kitchen counter where Carol was laying out cans of vegetables and chunk meat to use in tonight's chicken stew.

"We finally got one," said Karen, tapping the garlic bulb.

"I'm going to use a bit of your basil from the pots, too." Carol peeled the garlic and separated the cloves.

"Did General Boone stay on the couch last night?" Michonne asked as she prowled into the kitchen and leaned gracefully back against the refrigerator.

Carol glanced up from the garlic at Karen and felt that rush of belonging she always felt these days when there was any girl talk to be had, followed by a flash of anger at herself for having allowed Ed to separate her from what few friends she'd had.

"Not _all_ night," Karen replied, trying to keep her smile in check. "Just until everyone was asleep."

"Not _everyone_ , I presume," Michonne said.

Carol picked up a knife to begin mincing the garlic while Michonne continued her friendly interrogation. This was a nice break from her worry about Daryl out there on the road.

"What would you rate him?" Michonne asked, "on a scale of one to ten?"

"Eight," Karen answered.

Michonne whistled. "Pretty high. Rick's up to an eight now."

"Only an eight?" Carol asked. "Still?"

"Well, I have high standards, and I feel like a woman should _always_ leave room for improvement. But an eight on the first go-round..." She smiled at Karen. "Be careful you don't let him get too comfortable with his performance."

Karen laughed. "I won't. Although I think he's internally motivated. He's very self-disciplined. And very…commanding. But _respectful_. I like that combination."

"What would you rate Daryl?" Michonne asked Carol.

Carol flushed red. "Daryl is the best I've ever had in my life." She didn't have to say more. The women were interrupted by Patrick entering the kitchen to assist Carol with dinner.

[*]

The tracks didn't disappear by the creek. They disappeared _in_ the creek. "Drove through the water," Daryl said. He splashed into the creek, the water rising to just above his ankles, and tried to see through the murky surface to the ground beneath. Meanwhile, the general plucked off two approaching walkers with a pop-pop from his AR-15.

"This way," Daryl said, and began hiking the edge of the creek, his eyes on the tracks. "Sanchez didn't look too damn hard."

"Sanchez is a moron. But he saved your brother's life in a scuffle with the Pillagers. He was just a grunt in the army at the time, but he took a bullet for the King. In the _ass_ of all the fitting places. I don't fault Sanchez for his bravery. He's never lacked bravery. Brains, on the other hand…"

Daryl paused and looked up the low bank, which had been disturbed. One of the trucks had made its way up here, after slipping and sliding up and down the embankment several times to gain a grip, but the other truck had kept going through the water. He explained the situation to General Boone, who said, "Well, you're in charge. Choose your own adventure."

"Go on land," Daryl said. "Easier to see the tracks. Ain't as washed out. Creeks movin' too fast. Tracks're faint."

The general followed him up the embankment and along it, where the tires had crunched over and snapped sticks and brush between the creek and the tree line, likely paralleling the other truck in the creek bed below. Daryl found a loose, small mason jar of canned peaches and plucked it up from the ground. It was cracked and oozed out thick juice. He handed it back to General Boone.

"Probably fell out of the pick-up," the general said, pointing to a large pothole a few feet ahead which would have jolted and bounced the truck. "The Plantation has three peach trees. They do a lot of jarring." He sniffed it. "Probably still plenty good, but it'll make a mess in your pack." He unscrewed the lid. "Might as well eat them now. We forgot lunch." He fished inside, took out a slippery peach, and swallowed it down before handing the jar to Daryl, who did the same. The peach was sweet and soft in his mouth, and hummed as it went down before immediately fishing out the next piece.

They devoured the entire jar between them, and Boone let Daryl finish off the juice. Daryl tossed the empty, cracked jar back on the ground and moved on.

"Sanchez from that Plantation fiefdom?" Daryl asked as he tracked.

"No. The king found him alone. He'd been on his own for a while, barely surviving. I hear he was twenty pounds lighter back then, nearly starved. Your brother took him straight into his army. When he's on furlough, Sanchez doesn't really have a home. But he drives all the way to the RV fiefdom in Tennessee to stay with one of the women there for a few nights, and then he drives back, doing a little scavenging on the way."

"He's got _two_ whores?" Daryl asked.

"I don't think that's how he sees the woman in the RV fiefdom," General Boone answered. "Or how she sees herself. She calls him third husband."

Daryl blinked, shook his head, and walked on.

"But other than that, Sanchez has no family outside the army. No people. There are a lot of soldiers like that. There are only about sixty men drawn directly from the fiefdoms, some as part of the tithe, and some who simply volunteer for the food and bourbon, or out of boredom, or sometimes even out of a sense of honor – a real desire to serve and protect. The other soldiers...they're all orphans, so to speak. The army is their home."

"Just wonderin' if he's the insider," Daryl muttered. "Got the guard to let 'em in, went up with 'em to the tower, shot 'em, then let the thieves in."

"Sanchez doesn't have the foresight to plan a heist, and he's grateful for what your brother has given him. He wants to rise up in the King's court. He wouldn't betray him by robbing one of his fiefdoms."

"That whore?" Daryl asked. "Janice? Seems happy to trade. Maybe she made a deal with 'em."

"She's happy to trade herself. That doesn't mean she'd be happy to trade another man's life. Whoever let them in probably shot the guard first. But I'll interview her with a careful eye, as I will everyone, once we figure out where these assholes went."

"Don't think it's true, do ya?" Daryl asked, his eyes on the ground, his ears on the forest and the creek. "What she said, 'bout every woman in this world just bein' with the men they's with for protection?"

"I'm sure that's _part_ of it," Boone replied. "But that doesn't mean it's _all_ of it. I mean, plenty of women found rich men attractive in the old world. In this one…it's men like you and I who have the big fat wallets."

Daryl glanced back at him. "I ain't never had more than $5 and a condom in my wallet." And he rarely found use for the condom. "Didn't even own a credit card in the old world."

"I supported six children on a teacher's salary. My late wife only had a part-time job. I never had _anything_ in my wallet."

Daryl's eyes swept the tracks coming out of the creek where the bank lowered and joining the other pick-up and then veering right. He walked into the woods, between two trees, and touched the bark where a little paint had scraped off. He followed the signs into the woods. The pick-ups had plowed down a lot of brush and bent back small trees. It looked like one got stuck temporarily, lost a door handle, and had been pulled out from between the trees by the other truck using a hitch.

In fifteen minutes, they spilled out of the forest and onto a dirt roadway, which they followed to the highway. Soon enough, on the paved road, Daryl lost the sign, but at least they knew what highway the thieves had taken and which direction they had headed. General Boone consulted a map he pulled from his pack. "Shit," he muttered.

"What?"

"There's almost nothing on that road for miles upon miles in that direction, except one thing – the West Georgia Correctional Facility."

"So?"

"It's one of the Kingdom's fiefdoms." Boone folded the map and returned it to his pack. "I don't think they're headed that way to rob it in only two trucks that are already full."

Daryl looked down the empty roadway, littered only by the occasional abandoned car. "So…ya think they's _from_ there? That the fiefdom's are robbin' _each other_?"

Boone nodded. "Better get back to the Humvee and radio the general in charge of patrolling that fiefdom. General Gomez."

Boone began to walk down the road. Daryl put a staying hand on his shoulder. "What if that general's in on it?"

Boone turned.

"Think 'bout it," Daryl said. "Thieves had to go past his checkpoints, right, to get here and back? Man had to notice they'd lost people, and that they had shit, and that some of it was milk and eggs. Couldn't pass that off as scavengin'."

"Unless they got around the checkpoint both times. Let's go talk to him. Get a read on him. And see if those pick-ups are at that prison. I'll get Sanchez to dispatch a unit with us. The prison is an hour down that road. We should probably go back to the Plantation first anyway. Start interviewing people. And I need to relay all this information to the King and Queen through our radio network."

The two men began jogging back to the Humvee, cutting through the woods to reach the other roadway.

[*]

Daryl walked past Omar, who was on the radio with Boone's second-in-command, Colonel Derringer. Derringer would be relaying the latest information on the robbery to Merle's fourth general, John Wilson, who was in charge of patrolling the RV fiefdom and the Village fiefdom. General Wilson would then be passing that information on to Merle at the Parthenon, in a game of limited-transmission radio tag.

Daryl made his way back to where the two generals stood talking beside a tank at the checkpoint.

Sanchez smoothed his mustache downward with the tips of his fingers. "Well, if the Prison fiefdom is involved, then I doubt General Gomez will be getting the Vice Chancellor's position."

"Can you _forget_ the Vice Chancellor's position for a moment?" Boone asked. "The three thieves you killed in the gun fight, where are their bodies?"

"We burned them."

"Damn," Boone muttered. "I was hoping we could get someone to identify the bodies, see if they're from the prison."

"Would ya know if they had been?" Daryl asked Sanchez. "Have ya been there?"

"No. It's not my fiefdom, though it _should_ be. Maybe if it _were_ , if the King had trusted _me_ with patrolling two fiefdoms, we wouldn't be in this mess."

"Sir!" Omar ran up to the generals and stood straight. "Colonel Derringer spoke to General Wilson and relayed to me that there's been another robbery at the Village fiefdom. Similar modus operandi – They circumvented the army checkpoints, snuck in by night, cleared out the arsenal and pantry, and appeared to have had help from the inside. General Wilson followed the tracks as far as he could and lost them, but they were headed south west from the Village fiefdom."

"Toward the prison," Boone muttered.

"See, General Wilson didn't apprehend them either!" Sanchez exclaimed. "It's not a matter of incompetency on my part at all. These thieves are just that good."

Boone, ignoring Sanchez, asked Omar, "What do you mean, they appeared to have help from the inside?"

"General Wilson speculates that the guard himself let them in. But then they turned on him and shot him once they were inside, probably so he wouldn't talk later during an interrogation."

"Jesus!" Sanchez cried. "What the _hell_ is going on here?"

Boone addressed Sanchez. "Are you sure the Plantation guard was shot down _in_ the tower? Are you sure he wasn't the one who let them in? Perhaps _he_ was the one who was complicit, let them in, and then they turned on him and shot him, like they did to the guard in the Village fiefdom?"

"Well…I _assumed_ he was shot in the tower," Sanchez answered. "His body was on the ground by the front of the tower. Face down, like it had fallen from the tower. I thought he'd toppled over the rail after being shot. But I suppose he could have been shot standing there, on the ground _by_ the tower."

Boone turned to Daryl. "I need you to look over the sign by the tower, see what you think."

Daryl nodded.

"I'll leave Omar here at the checkpoint with your men, General Sanchez," Boone said. "I need him to continue using your radio to communicate with General Wilson and get word to the King. We won't confront the prison fiefdom until we get the go ahead from the King, but I think the people there – or some subgroup of them - has to be behind this. Some of the original group were thieves to begin with, weren't they?"

Sanchez whipped off his tri-cornered hat and scratched his thick head of hair. "The ten men and women who established that camp found five prisoners locked in the cafeteria. One of them was in for armed robbery, but he's no cat burglar. Not much of an armed robber either. Rumor is he did the job with a water pistol. Another man was in for breaking and entering. And of course Tomás Gomez joined the King's army and eventually became a general. Have you met him?"

"No," Boone replied. "I've never worked with him."

" _He_ was in for triple homicide, but I guess the skill translates. He took out an entire unit of Pillagers with just four men when he was a Captain. Anyway, General Gomez patrols that fiefdom now. The camp's grown considerably in size since it was established. Their supply runners are always finding and welcoming survivors. They have _sixty_ people now."

"How do they subsist?" Boone asked.

"Supply runs, mostly."

"So they're good at takin' things," Daryl said. "Gettin' in and out of places."

"I suppose," Sanchez replied. "Though they're starting to farm now, some, too. They're turning the prison yard into crop land, and they even have a pregnant pig they found alive on a nearby farm."

"Daryl," Omar called from the radio. "Your wife's on."

Daryl jogged over to the radio. "Hey. 'S me," he said into the microphone. He clicked the button and waited eagerly for the sweet sound of her voice.

"We're being extra cautious here," Carol said, "in case the thieves decide to hit us. Colonel Derringer has assigned Abraham to lead a unit in a tight patrol around our fiefdom, and he's leading one himself in tight patrol around General Boone's fiefdom. We're keeping a watchman in every stand throughout the day. I have two shifts today. Over."

"They got people working from the inside," Daryl replied. "Just so ya know. Don't reckon we have any traitors, though. Over."

Carol's voice crackled through the radio. "Be safe, sweetheart. I love you. Over."

Daryl was keenly aware of Omar's presence, but he replied anyway, his voice a little low, "Love ya, too, Beautiful. Over and out."

[*]

Daryl went with the two generals back to the plantation and examined the earth before the watch tower, climbed into the watch tower itself, and asked the guard for his helmet. Reluctantly, and with a look of confusion on his face, the guard took it off and handed it over. Daryl tossed the helmet over the tower rail, and it landed with a thud on the ground below.

"What the hell?" the guard yelled.

"Just testin' somethin'. Bring it back up to ya later." Daryl leaned halfway over the low railing, clutching it with his hands, his boots planted firmly on the floor, and looked over the scene below. Then he pushed himself up and clambered down the watchtower ladder to pluck up the helmet again.

In the end, Daryl concluded that the guard did _not_ fall out of the watchtower after being shot. He was shot on his feet, stumbled over a rock, and fell face first into the dirt.

"So he probably _did_ let in the thieves," Boone said. "Did he have a wife, that guard? A girlfriend? Someone who knows him well we could talk to?"

"No wife or girlfriend," Sanchez answered. "But his brother is the Mayor. They have a Mayor and a Town Council. We should start the interviews with them." Sanchez looked Daryl over with a sour expression of distaste. "I don't think he should accompany us. He'll scare people."

Boone glanced at Daryl, a slight look of apology in his eyes. It was clear he agreed with Sanchez but didn't want to say so.

"Stay out here," Daryl said, so Boone wouldn't have to ask him to. "Keep lookin' at the signs. See what more I can find. Wait for y'all to do the interviews."

Boone nodded and left with Sanchez. The two generals walked side by side toward the mansion house, Sanchez's gait a strange, cocky, half skip, Boone's steady and sure.

Daryl wandered around the premises. He looked at the fence line again, the earth below the watchtower, and the trail leading to and from the armory in the carriage house, which housed an actual 19th century carriage, as well as many steel shelves that were now two-thirds empty.

Finding nothing new of note in his explorations, Daryl decided to stroll the rest of the plantation while he waited for General Boone. When he was by the old servant's quarters, a long, dorm-like house subdivided into individual rooms, a door flew open. A camo-clad soldier, buckling his belt, walked out. A light blush creeping across his creeks, he bent his head down and scurried past Daryl to the edge of the quarters where he mounted a motorcycle and roared off toward the front gate. There he idled, whistled, and waited for the guard to let him out.

Daryl turned from watching the solider to find Janice standing in the open doorway of the room, leaned with one arm stretched out and up against the frame. She was wearing a long, red, silky button-down pajama shirt that was completely open over her lacy black bra and panties. "Want to come in, handsome?" she asked.

Daryl shifted his bow on one shoulder and his knapsack on the other. He looked toward the gate again, which the guard was now opening for the departing soldier, and then he looked toward the mansion house, where Boone and Sanchez were inside interviewing the Council.

He glanced back at Janice. "Mhm," he said, and followed her into the room.


	92. Mutiny

In Janice's bedroom, clothes stuck partway out of drawers that were slightly open. Cosmetics, tubes of lubricant, combs, and hair brushes littered the top of the rustic wooden dresser. A box of condoms lay between a stack of cigarette packs and a half-finished bottle of Buffalo Trace. An old, maple, four-poster bed took up the bulk of the tiny room. A rugged wooden cross hung on the far wall, and a dusty window with white lace curtains let in hazy light. A water basin and pitcher sat on an end table by the bed. Around the basin lay three crumpled washcloths.

Janice leaned against one poster of the bed and threw back her shoulders so that her silky shirt fell further open and her breasts stood out to full effect. "A bottle of top shelf bourbon for the real thing. If you've got a pack of smokes I can – "

"- Stop. Button up."

"Excuse me?"

"Don't want sex. Wanna talk to you."

She laughed, shook her head, and began buttoning the shirt over her bra and panties. "Whatever turns you on, sugar. How dirty do you want me to talk?"

"Don't wantchya to talk dirty. Wantchaya to answer some questions."

"Yeah?" she asked, buttoning the last button of her shirt, which fell to her thighs. "And what will you pay me for that?"

"Got one packs of cigarettes, a Coke, and a protein bar in my pack. And put on some goddamn pants."

Janice went to her dresser, jerked out a pair of jean shorts, and slid them on beneath her silky shirt. The snap clicked loudly as she walked over to the bed, which creaked when she sat down on the end. "Have a seat," she said, motioning to a wooden chair in the corner nearest the bed. It had a bra slung over the back of it.

"I'll stand."

"Suit yourself."

He noticed a narrow bookshelf on the other side of the bed. Two full bottles of bourbon rested on the shelves, along with about twenty packs of cigarettes. "How many smokes can ya possibly need?"

"I don't smoke myself," she said. "But cigarettes are like money in this camp and especially in the army. If I have them, I can usually get what I want with them. The bourbon, though…that's for me. After you've seen enough people eaten alive, you've got to have a little something to drown the memories."

After setting down his pack and bow on the floor. Daryl spied a photograph taped to the inside of the bookcase, just behind the bottle of Four Roses. In it, a beautiful young woman in a white Easter dress and bonnet stood smiling next to a handsome man in a suit. Two laughing, well-dressed identical twin boys stood before the happy couple holding Easter baskets overflowing with colorful eggs. A bright green lawn stretched out behind them toward a brick, two-story home. It took Daryl a moment to realize the woman in the photo was Janice. He felt a strange flash of sorrow and anger, and his jaw clenched.

She followed his eyes. "They're all dead now, of course," she said. "I don't even know why I keep it. But I do."

"Ain't got to live like this," he told her. "Where's I from, my fiefdom, women don't have to live like this."

"Live like what?" she asked, her voice sad and soft, but not defensive. "I get by just fine. Better than many. And the men who come see me? Most of them have lost wives. Girlfriends. Children. Family. Friends. They're horny, sure. But they're also lonely. It's a very lonely world. And then, for just the price of a pack of cigarettes and some chocolate, for a few minutes – it's _not_. That's as much good as anyone else does in this world."

Daryl swallowed and looked away from the photo, to the wooden floor, which was partially covered by a worn, circular rug.

"But _you're_ not lonely," she asked. "Are you? You're one of the rare lucky ones."

"Yeah," he agreed. "Damn lucky." He sat down abruptly in the chair, ignoring the prick of the clasp on the bra when he leaned back and the unsteady creak of the wood. "Lonely men…they sometimes talk to ya?"

"Sometimes," she said. "You want to know what I know about this robbery, is that it? You think the thieves had help from the inside?"

"How the hell ya know we think that?"

"I've got ears. I heard you talking to the generals outside the fence. So who do you want to know about? And before we start, lay out the payment."

Daryl unzipped his pack and drew out the cigarettes, protein bar, and Coke. He tossed them onto her bed.

"I haven't had a Coca-Cola in two months." Janice picked up the can and cracked it open. It hissed and bubbled up, and she sipped off the fizz quickly before it could spill over. "Mmmmh. That's almost as good as bourbon. I might even mix it with bourbon. In fact, make me a cocktail, would you, sugar?"

Daryl stood, took the Coke can from her outstretched hand, and walked to the dresser, where he scooped up an empty glass. A faint ring of bourbon lined the bottom.

"It's clean enough," Janice said. "About three ounces of bourbon. Use my open bottle. Then Coke to the brim."

He made her the drink and brought it back to her. She took a sip, swallowed, and smiled. "A little taste of heaven."

"General Sanchez." Daryl sat back down. "Start with him."

"General Sanchez is an ambitious but incompetent man," she said. "He feels deeply wronged by the King."

"Hmmm." Boone had said Sanchez was loyal, that he appreciated what Merle had done for him, but Boone probably knew less about the man than did the woman who was sleeping with him.

"Jorge considers himself a great man who should have been given a better leadership position than any of the other generals," Janice continued. "He thinks the King should be indebted to him for saving his life and should trust him above all others, when in fact the King puts nearly all of his trust into General Boone, General Wilson, and his Royal Secretary."

"Harold?" Daryl asked. He remembered the man in the glasses who had accompanied Merle at their first meeting, with all of his notes and maps.

"Yes, Harold. He's visited me a few times, when he's been here to do the surprise inspections. He's intelligent, very good at long-term planning, which is why Merle keeps him as an advisor."

"Merle," Daryl said. "Y'all on a first name basis? Ya don't always call 'em the King?"

"Are the rumors true? Are you really his brother?"

"Yeah. Merle's my brother. He come to see ya?"

"A time or two," she answered. "In the beginning."

"What's the Queen think of that?"

"Well, let's just say she didn't like it one little bit. So he's not allowed to visit the Plantation fiefdom anymore. Or the RV fiefdom, for that matter. All those polyamorous women. They don't _ask_ for bourbon. But they _get_ it. I'm just more honest in my approach."

"Hmm."

"Merle's an evolving man, but old habits die hard, I suppose. He loves her, though. The Queen. He _does_ love her. And rumor is he hasn't slept with another woman in three whole months."

"What else can ya tell me 'bout Sanchez?" Daryl asked.

"I can tell you there's no way in hell he pulled this off." Janice sipped her cocktail. "Maybe, out of envy and spite, out of a feeling of being passed over, he might have agreed to a betrayal of this sort, but there's no way he _orchestrated_ it. If he has any part in it, he was _approached_."

"Mhmhm." Daryl felt something was off about Sanchez, but if he was involved, why would he have attempted to apprehend the escaping thieves? "He killed three of them bandits."

"That's not what I heard."

"Nah? What _did_ ya here?"

"I heard that General Sanchez wasn't even there. Roy Givens, the young private who was just now here to see me, said Captain Anderson and his unit of eight men, Roy with them, had deviated from their patrol path a few miles to chase a deer. They weren't where they were supposed to be when they were supposed to be there, and they saw the three pick-ups maneuvering on a non-paved road around the checkpoint. When they tried to stop those trucks, the drivers blew past, so they shot out the tires of the last pick-up. Two armed men spilled out and opened fire. Hand grenades and smoke bombs were tossed from the other two pick-ups, and all of the thieves vanished in the woods. When the smoke cleared, there were three bodies in the road, but none of them belonged to the thieves. They all belonged to Captain Anderson's men."

"Ain't what Sanchez said." He said he'd apprehended the thieves, killed three, and burned the bodies.

"Jorge has always told tall tales of his bravery. When Captain Anderson reported the incident to General Sanchez and returned the truck full of stolen supplies, Jorge insisted on relaying the attack to the King himself. He didn't want Captain Anderson to do it."

"And he took credit for something he ain't done?" Daryl asked. "That annoy Captain Anderson?"

"Captain Anderson has never visited me, but Roy says he's irritated. Irritated but resigned, because Captain Anderson thinks General Sanchez is on the way out."

"Yeah, why's that?" Daryl asked.

"There have been rumors that Merle hasn't been happy with Jorge's performance for a while. There's talk of a certain new captain under General Boone's command. He's supposed to be some kind of rising star, and, before long, it's believed he'll be Merle's fourth general."

"Abraham Ford?"

"The name does ring a bell." Janice sipped her cocktail.

"Sanchez heard that rumor?" Daryl asked.

"I'm sure it's reached his ears."

"Hmmm." If Sanchez knew he was about to be replaced, he might have decided to help the thieves out of anger. But what then? What did he stand to gain from it? Supplies, if he got a cut of what they stole, but so what? The army was well fed; the generals more so. What Sanchez most wanted, it seemed, was _prestige_. What prestige was there in underground thieving? "Anyone else talk to ya?"

"Rudy. One of the Town Councilmen. He says he and the Mayor have been arguing over how much to pay the water engineer in the Village fiefdom to come down and help us locate and dig a second well, but I doubt that's of interest to you. And then there's Private Timothy. He pays me extra to talk about his stamp collection, which he's kept with him throughout this entire apocalypse, believe it or not."

"Serious?"

"You'd be surprised the things some men are willing to pay for." Janice took a long sip of her drink, which was half gone now. "Have you gentlemen considered the possibility that these thieves were not working with someone from the inside at all?"

"They was let in. Both here and in the Village fiefdom."

Janice shrugged casually and sipped again. "Think about it," she said.

Daryl _did_ think about it. But he couldn't guess what Janice was thinking. "If someone let them in, then they had to have help from the inside."

"Not necessarily. They may have been let in innocently. They may have been let in because they – or at least someone among them – was _recognized_."

Daryl thought about this silently.

"Who was the last person you let inside your gates, and why?" Janice asked.

"General Boone and his men. 'Cause he was there to brief the Council." The gears churned in Daryl's mind. "Ain't General Boone," he told her. "He's with us last night when that robbery happened in the Village fiefdom. And he was busy patrolin' our fiefdom when the robbery happened here."

"I'm not suggesting it was General Boone. Our people wouldn't recognize General Boone anyway. He's never set foot in our fiefdom before today. But I _am_ suggesting that the thieves were let in because they either were or appeared to be representatives of the Kingdom of Merle."

Daryl rubbed his chin. "Makes sense. And once they was in, they shot the guard and started loadin' up the trucks."

"I'm smarter than I look," Janice said. "So are you, sugar. So put two and two together here."

"Don't know what yer gettin' at."

"Who would be recognized by multiple fiefdoms in different jurisdictions if he came to the gates and asked to be let in?"

Daryl's gut cinched in on itself. "Merle?" Then his gut uncurled. "Nah. Don't make no goddamn sense. He's already in charge."

"Not Merle. And not a general, since the generals collect the tithe only in their own jurisdictions. But who conducts the surprise inspections in _all_ of the fiefdoms? Who's the man with the satchel and the clipboard? The man everybody recognizes but nobody suspects?"

"Harold?"

"Harold." She drained the last of her glass. "Who, as I mentioned, is an excellent long-term planner. And he knows all the generals and a lot of the soldiers. He has his own protective detail of soldiers who guard him while he travels to do his inspections. He's the master keeper of all the lists. He has access to the King's arsenal and pantry and can pay people out of it - he's paid _me_ out of it and bragged to me privately of his pilfering. He knows where all the army checkpoints are, and what the patrol patterns are, so he could easily circumvent them. Those thieves ran into Captain Anderson on the way out of here, but I'm guessing it's because he wasn't where he was _expected_ to be."

"Harold don't travel by pick-up though."

"No, he usually travels by Humvee, but if they were planning to rob, they probably wanted more room – the kind of room pick-ups provide. The men Captain Anderson tried to stop had grenades and smoke bombs. Our armory doesn't have those. But Harold's protective detail _does_. The Captain would have recognized Harold, which may be another reason they used the smoke bombs to obscure themselves while they got away."

"Damn," Daryl muttered. "Yer like fuckin' Nancy Drew."

"But without the handsome, polite boyfriend. So now two armories have been robbed. Guns and ammo and food are missing. And apparently, these supplies have been taken back toward the prison fiefdom, which is patrolled by General Tomas Gomez. A capable fighter, promoted for his fighting skills, and for his apparent loyalty to the King, but a former convicted murderer. Not the most ethical man in the army. So have you put two and two together yet?"

Daryl stood up from the chair and reached for his crossbow and pack. "Yeah," he said as he slid them one by one on his shoulder. "The Kingdom's in the middle of a mutiny."

"It would appear so."

He turned to face her. "And which side are ya on?"

Janice stood, walked over to her dresser, and poured herself some more bourbon. She turned toward him, brought the glass to her lips, and, just before sipping, said, "Whichever side wins."


	93. Standoff

Daryl, eager to find and talk to General Boone, slammed open the door of Janice's bedroom. He'd taken five steps out when he saw Boone approaching up the pathway. General Boone glanced at Janice in the doorway, then at Daryl, and his jaw twitched. A look of disdain clouded his light, hazel eyes.

Daryl walked quickly toward him. "Ain't what ya think," he said. He certainly didn't want some rumor getting back to Carol that he'd gone to see a prostitute. Janice slipped back into her room and closed the door. "I was interviewin' her. Figured she'd know shit, ya know, sleepin' with everyone."

"Good, good," said General Boone, looking relieved. "Because I didn't learn anything of use from the Council or Mayor."

"Where's Sanchez?"

"He said he had to get back to work. He's left the plantation. What did the woman say?"

Daryl walked with Boone away from the servant's quarters and told him everything.

"And you think she's right?" Boone asked. "You think we can trust a whore?"

"Makes sense, don't it?" Daryl asked. "And she ain't got nothin' to gain from lyin'."

"It makes more sense than any other theory I've pieced together. Except this idea that Sanchez is in on it...He's incompetent, sure, and ambitious, and maybe a bit paranoid, but it's hard for me to imagine him being a part of a mutinous plot. What would he have to _gain_?"

"Man wants a high position somethin' awful. Maybe they offered him one in whatever new government they's tryin' to establish."

"But he reported the theft."

"He _had_ to. Or else Cap'n Anderson would of. And he's been feedin' us half-truths ever since we got here."

The roar of an engine neared as their Humvee drove rapidly toward the gates and squealed to a stop. Omar leapt out.

Daryl and the General jogged down the dirt pathway to the gates. They didn't wait for the guard to let them out, but unlatched it themselves.

Omar drew close to the two men and lowered his voice in a hushed whisper even though there was no one around. "I got in touch with the King through our relay radio system. Five of the palace guards have deserted the Parthenon. They took with them two tanks, an army truck, and two Humvees, and it looks like they cleared out one-third of the arsenal, including a lot of RPGs. Harold and his detail have not returned as expected. The King is worried they were hijacked by the deserting guards."

"Nah," Daryl muttered. "They's all in it together, with the prison fiefdom, and General Gomez, and hell, maybe Sanchez, too. Gettin' ready to go to war."

Omar's face turned an ashy white. "The checkpoint guards overheard me talking on the radio. All four of them just packed up and pulled out, left me there alone. I thought they were responding to a call, but maybe they're going to tell Sanchez we know what's going on?"

"Things are moving quickly," Boone said. "Whatever mutiny is brewing – we just put a match to it."

"Why?" Omar asked. "Why would any of the army revolt?"

"Power," General Boone answered.

"But things were fine," Omar muttered. "They aren't _cruel_ , the King and Queen. We were _safe_. And _fed_. And now a lot of people will die!"

"Did they leave you with the radio?" General Boone asked.

Omar nodded. "I put it in the Humvee."

"Get me on it," General Boone ordered. "Right now."

[*]

General Boone got a hold of Abraham on the radio, who promised to relay the message to General Wilson in Tennessee, who would in turn relay the news to the King. They waited ten minutes before Abraham came back on the radio and told general Boone, "General Wilson is on his way to join you with fifteen soldiers and some equipment, but he's leaving the rest to patrol the fiefdoms under his charge. He said to rendezvous at the Exxon ten miles outside the checkpoint, and not to tell Sanchez anything. I can't seem to get a hold of Colonel Derringer. Do you want me to come down with my unit?"

"Yes," General Boone answered. "As quickly as you can. If you reach Derringer, tell him to divide the remaining patrol between the cabins and the school."

When he signed off, General Boone turned to Daryl. "Colonel Derringer must be temporarily out of range. As he's patrolling the school, and Abraham's coming down here, your fiefdom will be on its own in terms of security until we can reach him. You better warn them."

Daryl nodded and asked Omar to tune to the cabin fiefdom's frequency. Eugene was on radio duty, and after a long-winded answer, Daryl demanded that he shut up and get Carol, with whom he shared the news.

"We'll be ready," Carol assured him and told him to "be careful" before signing off.

Next Omar tuned to the frequency for Boone's fiefdom at the school. "Come in. Come in," General Boone repeated. "This is General Boone. Come in."

"Hello, Daddy," a young woman answered the call.

"Samantha," General Boone said, "we're in a bit of a pickle here. Looks like mutiny. Tell your husband to double the watch. Colonel Derringer's still patrolling the school, but once we reach him, he'll split that patrol in half, so you'll need to be on the look-out for Pillagers. If Harold should show up at your gates, do _not_ let him in. He's a traitor. I'm not going to make my furlough home tomorrow. Tell Jack, Carter, and Joy I'm sorry, and kiss my grandson for me."

"I will. Be safe out there, Daddy."

"As safe as I can, Princess. Over and out."

[*]

At the Exxon station where General Wilson had agreed to rendezvous, Omar continued trying to reach Colonel Derringer on the radio but eventually gave up. "I wonder if the battery died, sir," he told General Boone. "The colonel is always forgetting to recharge it."

"Hell of a time to let the battery go dead!" Boone muttered.

"Maybe he's on a different frequency. I'll keep trying."

As Omar was tuning, he caught a heavily accented voice saying, "Come in. Come in. Come the fuck in!"

General Boone seized the microphone. "Your Highness? Is that you?"

"Jimmy boy?" came Merle's voice.

"Yes, sir. You got the message from General Wilson?"

"Oh I got the message all fuckin' right. I'm halfway there with twenty soldiers and some serious equipment. Don't make a goddamn move until I get there. Exxon station, right?"

"Yes, sir."

[*]

"I think we need to make preparations for war, in case this battle somehow reaches us," Rick said. He'd taken Daryl's place on the Council while he was gone.

"You'll get no disagreement from me," Sasha replied. "Even if the war remains contained in the south, we still have the Pillagers to worry about."

Carol, Darlene, and Maggie all concurred.

"Let's position an army truck at each of the front and back gates," Carol suggested. "Every adult walks around armed with a long-range rifle at all times. We load extra magazines and carry them. Put a guard at the pantry and one at the armory, as well as the four on the walls and the one in the watchtower. Farming and fishing and hunting and gardening go on the back burner until we know what's going on. We'll dip into our stores of canned food for meals. The kids can do most of the cooking and cleaning for now, and the older ones can look after the younger ones. We eat dinner in four shifts instead of two, to allow more people to remain on guard."

The Council dispersed, and Carol went straight to the armory to load up two extra magazines for her AR-15.

[*]

Waiting was torture. Daryl smoked three cigarettes he bummed from Omar in future promise of a half bag of Funyuns. "If we make it out of this war alive, that is," Omar muttered. "I signed up to fight the Pillagers. Not a Civil War."

"Ya signed up to defend yer camp," Daryl reminded him. Omar was from the school fiefdom where General Boone's family also lived. "And if we don't put this rebellion down, they's gonna come after all our camps eventually."

Omar nodded. He took a nervous puff of his cigarette and blew out the smoke. "If I'm hero in this war, maybe Haley will dump Tara for me." He smiled. "Or just let me join them."

Daryl snorted. "Doubt that. Life ain't a porno."

"Not my life, anyway."

A smattering of gunfire erupted somewhere in the distance. Daryl dropped his cigarette and readied his crossbow.

Boone circled the empty pumps, sweeping his rifle in every direction, and even studying the sky. "How far away was that?"

"A few miles, I reckon," Daryl said.

"Should we investigate?" Omar asked, his cigarette now stubbed out and his M16 in his hands.

"No," Boone replied. "The King said to stay put. General Wilson and Captain Ford are in transit. We should be here when they get here."

Eventually, they lowered their guns, and Daryl bummed yet another smoke from Omar. "What happened to _your_ pack?" Omar asked. "Didn't you have one?"

"Gave it to Janice."

Omar's eyes widened.

"Not for _that_ ," Daryl clarified. "To _talk_. Tell what she knew."

Omar lit up. "Oh." He took a puff. "Well it's not like I would have ratted on you. But if it were me, I wouldn't risk a bird in hand by cheating on her. It's hard enough to _get_ a woman in this world." He pointed his cigarette toward General Boone. "I think he bogarted the last one in the world without a boyfriend."

"There's always the RV fiefdom, Omar," General Boone told him with a smirk.

"They wouldn't have me, sir, because I'm not white. But it's just as well. Never stick your dick in crazy, I always say."

"If only I'd been _forewarned_ ," Boone said, "but it was my first time there, and she seemed normal enough. She didn't start talking about their religion until afterwards. And husband number one didn't show up until the morning."

"What religion?" Daryl asked.

"They worship a guy in their RV park," Omar replied. "A man with missing teeth, no less. Some god. Can't even chew. And they think every time they _marry_ a new husband, the Protective Eye that hovers invisibly over them receives an extra defensive power."

"Hell ya mean they _worship_ him?" Daryl asked.

"They lay flowers on his trailer steps every morning, and at night they line his path to the trailer with candles in paper bags. And then there's the communal sex prayers."

Daryl's brow furrowed. "Hell's a communal sex prayer?"

"I don't know exactly," Omar said, "but it sounds like fun if you're the god."

Two Humvees rolled up, and the three men pointed their weapons in their direction. Six soldiers spilled out, weapons shouldered, and saluted Boone.

"Are you General Wilson's men?" Boone asked.

"No, sir." The man in front answered, lowering his hand. "I'm Captain Joseph Anderson. I'm under General Sanchez's command."

Daryl inched his finger over the trigger of his crossbow. _Anderson._ That was the man whose unit Janice said had shot out the tires of the fleeing thieves. He removed his finger from the trigger and waited.

"Or I _was_." Captain Anderson looked back at his men. "Until General Sanchez proposed mutiny. He said that he and General Gomez have taken command of the prison and have support from other rebelling soldiers. When we refused to join him, there was a scuffle. He and the other traitors sped away in the direction of the prison. We chose not to pursue. If he has Gomez's entire force on his side…we can't possibly take them on alone. We followed the tracks of your Humvee here."

"How many of Sanchez's soldiers have joined him?" Boone asked.

"Eight were with him, but we killed one in the scuffle."

"Then where are the rest?" Boone asked.

"Colonel Taggart remains loyal to the King. He took eight men back to guard the Plantation. Two men simply deserted."

General Boone interrogated Sanchez's deserting men until he was satisfied they were telling the truth. Then, he sent them back to join Colonel Taggart to defend the Plantation. "If they've seized the prison," he told Captain Anderson, "they may well try to seize the Plantation, too. We'll radio you if we need any of you."

Captain Anderson nodded and withdrew with his five men.

"Sanchez is a fool," Boone told Daryl. "When he realized we'd figured him out, he must have gotten scared and ditched whatever game plan Harold had, tried to recruit more men, and then run for the prison. He started this thing before they were fully ready to start it. And now we know for sure that General Gomez is in on it. That at least gives us the upper hand."

Abraham and his men arrived at the rendezvous point first, followed half an hour later by General Wilson and his fifteen soldiers. General John Wilson was a short but sinewy black man, not more than 5 foot 6, who wore an Atlanta Braves baseball cap with his army fatigues. He was fierce-looking despite his shortness, and a hardness in his eyes made them difficult to hold, but his voice was strangely soft when he spoke. "Let's hope this is not the time the Pillagers choose to attack our fiefdoms in force," he told General Boone, "with half of our patrols gone. Let's hope this mutiny resolves quickly."

When Merle arrived with his twenty soldiers, he was livid and ready to siege the prison in full force. He wanted to launch RPG's over its fence and set it on fire. General Boone and General Wilson calmed him, Boone saying, "They'll be expecting us. Sanchez knows we're onto him. There could be innocent men and women in that prison. Some may have joined the rebels, but others may merely be prisoners in their own prison."

Merle prowled about the gas station like a tiger in a cage, snarling and trying to decide what to do. At last slammed a fist down on the hood of a truck. It shuddered. He closed his eyes and breathed in and out deeply, almost as if he were meditating. Daryl had never seen him do anything like that before.

Merle breathed in one more time deeply through his nose and then exhaled slowly through his open mouth. He opened his eyes. "Esther thinks we should try to negotiate first. At least find out what they want."

"It's worth a try," General Wilson replied.

"I can't imagine their demands will be reasonable," General Boone said, "but at least going to meet them will give us some idea of the size of their force."

"Let's pay 'em a visit then," Merle said at last. "Have ourselves a little _chat_."

[*]

Carol was on watch at the front gate when a tank, an army truck, and two Humvees pulled up. Colonel Derringer, a blonde-haired, blue eyed man of about forty, with a light beard, emerged from the lead Humvee.

"Captain Ford was trying to reach you on the radio," she shouted down at him.

"Well, he got a hold of me finally," Colonel Derringer shouted back up. "I have some important news. We need to make some plans together. Can you let us in to brief your Council?"

Carol nodded and climbed down the ladder to the ground below.

[*]

The rebels were ready for them. They had the road blocked off several miles in advance of the prison. A tank, several Humvees, and two pick-ups stretched across the asphalt, as did numerous armed men, including General Sanchez and the rebels who had joined him, General Gomez and about half of his soldiers, the palace guards who had deserted the Parthenon, Harold and his security detail, and some armed men from the prison fiefdom.

The armies stood face to face in the road, guns pointed, tanks positioned, no one firing. Harold, wearing a flak vest and helmet, stepped out of the rebels' line first. Though unarmed himself, he was flanked on either side by an armed member of his protective detail. Generals Sanchez and Gomez joined him on either side. Meeting the rebels in the center of the road were Merle, General Boone, General Wilson, Abraham, and Daryl. The armies were evenly matched.

"Slicker n' owl shit, ain'tchaya, you wily little fucker?" Merle said to Harold. "After _all_ I've done for you."

" _All_ you've done for me?" Harold asked. " _I've_ kept this Kingdom running, and how have you repaid me? You've treated me like a _servant_. Fetching this and fetching that. Jumping at your command. Well, that's about to end. Because these men," he pointed from Sanchez to Gomez, "understand what a _true_ King is _supposed_ to be."

Merle's eyes bore into those of General Sanchez. "Is that so, Jorge?"

"King Harold understands how much respect a general such as myself should be given," Sanchez replied. "He'll make me _Vice General_."

"Ain't no such thing as a _Vice General_ , dumb ass," Merle told him. " _That's_ why you betrayed me? For a goddamn feather to stick in your cap? You're gonna regret that, sonny boy." Merle turned his boiling gaze on General Gomez. "And _you_ , Tomas? What made-up position did _King Harold_ here offer you?"

"I'm just in it for the spoils, hombre," said Gomez, jutting out his chin. "You're stingy with the rations. You could pay us _double_ the bourbon and food, as much as you have. And I'm tired of all your petty rules against raping women."

"Wait," General Sanchez said, looking suddenly alarmed, "I never agreed to rape women."

"Well you don't _have_ to," Gomez told him.

"I never agreed to _allow_ it!" Sanchez exclaimed.

"This is war, you dumb ox!" Gomez replied. "What the hell did you _think_ would happen?"

Sanchez swallowed and shifted his rifle nervously in his hands. Daryl noted his reluctance and apparent second thoughts. There may come a time they could use that.

"There won't be too much bloodshed, _Merle_ ," Harold insisted, emphasizing his first name snidely, clearly delighting in no longer using his title, "none at all against your soldiers, _if_ you agree to let us keep what we've taken from you so far _and_ secede to us the rule of a separate southern Kingdom."

"Say what now?" Merle asked.

"An equal division is all I ask." Harold slid his glasses off his face, cleaned them deliberately using the tail of his button-down shirt where it emerged from beneath his flak vest, and then returned them to his face. "You can keep four territories - the northernmost three fiefdoms and your precious Parthenon - and I'll keep four. I'll take the southernmost four fiefdoms – first, the prison, which as you can see we've already seized. Second, the plantation, which the other half of General Gomez's troops is seizing as we speak."

Boone, Wilson, and Daryl exchange glances. There were now fourteen soldiers loyal to the King defending that plantation, and the other half of General Gomez's force totaled fifteen. It would be an even match, even if the people of the plantation couldn't defend themselves with their depleted arsenal.

"Not just my soldiers," General Gomez said, as though reading their minds. "But also ten of my prison recruits. Twenty-five armed men in all, with RPGs and a tank. I wouldn't bother rushing to defend them if I were you. The plantation is forty miles away. By the time you get there, it will be done."

"As I was saying," Harold continued, "we'll take the prison and the plantation. We'll also take the other two southernmost fiefdoms – the cabins and the school."

Daryl's grip tightened around his crossbow.

"And how do you expect to do that?" General Boone asked coolly.

Harold's lips curved in a creepy, self-satisfied smile. "You haven't been able to get Colonel Derringer on the radio, have you?"

Daryl felt every ounce of his blood run cold.

"That's because he's deliberately not answering you," Harold replied. "And the reason he's not answering you, of course, is that he's _with us_. He's at the cabins this very moment. He'll attack them first, eliminate the fighters, and keep only the workers alive: the women, the children, the weaker men…Then he'll plunder the cabin fiefdom's arsenal, seize the camp's two army trucks, and move on to take over the school."

A growl escaped Daryl, and he lunged toward Harold, smashing his head against the man's and cracking his glasses in the process. Merle yanked Daryl back by the neck of his shirt while everyone else leveled guns and leaned toward one other.

"Hold your fire!" Merle ordered. He let go of Daryl's shirt, glared at him, and then returned his gaze to Harold. "I apologize for my baby brother," he said. "Daryl can get a little hot under the collar sometimes."

"Seems like a family trait," Harold replied with a snarl of his thin lips. He tucked his broken glasses into the pocket of his khaki pants.

Merle closed his eyes and breathed in and then out before looking at Harold again. "You've got us almost evenly matched, and my Kingdom's getting a little too big for me to handle anyhow. _You_ know that. You know how hard it's been for me, Harry, handling all the dumb ass little details, how much I've leaned on you."

"I do," Harold agreed.

"I ain't no goddamn micromanager," Merle continued. "And let's be honest – hell – me personally? I've got everything I need and more at the Parthenon, even _after_ ya robbed a third of my arsenal."

Daryl shot a puzzled look at Merle.

"So I'm gonna draw back my force ten miles," Merle continued, "and I'm gonna discuss your proposal with my generals."

Discuss it? Was his brother really thinking of handing over the cabins and the school to these rebels? With at least one would-be rapist among them? "My wife's in them cabins," he said in a low whisper to Merle.

Merle held out a finger to silence him and continued to look at Harold. "We'll be back in an hour to meet y'all here and work out the terms of the truce." Merle took a step back and then turned on his heels. He yelled in a loud, commanding voice, "Pull back!"


	94. Attack

As Carol was about to unlatch the gate, she paused. Something didn't feel right. Why would Colonel Derringer have brought so many men just to brief the Council? They were all on heightened alert. He should have sent a courier and remained with his men to patrol the two fiefdoms, especially with Abraham gone to meet the others.

She stepped back and removed the safety on her rifle. No one knew who was in on this potential mutiny. Maybe it wasn't just Harold and the generals down south.

Darlene was repairing a plank on the porch of a nearby cabin while her rifle was loaded and leaned against the rail of the porch. Carol jogged over to her and shared her concerns.

"I'll spread the word," Darlene said. "Make sure everyone is ready for anything. You get back on that platform and keep them talking."

Carol nodded and ran for the ladder. Nervously, she climbed up to the platform, but once she was at the top, she had gathered her wits. She put on the false tone of sweet innocence she'd perfected as Ed's wife. "Silly me," she said, "I've never opened the gate before. I don't know how to work this stupid double lock. I tried, but I couldn't get it open. I had to send for someone who knows what he's doing." She smiled sheepishly. "I feel so foolish."

Colonel Derringer did not look suspicious. He looked like he believed it was entirely in fitting with a woman's character not to be able to figure out how to open a lock. He glanced at his watch. "Well, let's hope it doesn't take all day. It's important news."

"Maybe you could just tell me now? I'll relay it to the Council?" She didn't mention she was _on_ the Council. That might not support her innocent routine. She didn't think Colonel Derringer knew much about the composition of their camp.

"It's really something I need to tell your Council in person," he said.

"Well, then, we'll have to wait." Carol smiled.

[*]

"Discuss?" Daryl spat. "Hell is there to discuss?" He paced by a tank.

"We ain't discussin' the proposal," Merle told him. "Hell you take me for? We're discussin' our plan of _attack_. We're gonna burn that goddamn prison to the ground!"

"I have to get back to Carol." Daryl paced toward a Humvee and yanked open the door.

Merle slammed the door closed and backed Daryl away from the vehicle. "Calm down, brother. Ain't nothin' you can do to help her right now. That's two hours away. By the time you get there, it'll be over, one way or the other."

"He's right," Abraham told Daryl. "Every natural animal instinct in my body tells me to rush back there to defend Sasha, but the King is right. We would arrive far too late. They're going to have to fight this battle on their own. Harold said they'd kill all our fighters. What he doesn't comprehend is that _everyone_ in our camp is a fighter. We're needed _here_. Once we take care of this, then we can go up there and fortify whatever's left standing."

"Everyone in my camp is _not_ a fighter," General Boone said. Daryl had never heard his voice shake before, but it was shaking now. "We have a lot of children in that school. _My_ children among them. My grandchild."

"They won't make it to your camp," Abraham assured him. "They won't make it past the cabin fiefdom. He has fourteen soldiers left with him. It's not enough."

"You're overconfident," Boone told him. "Derringer has a tank and three Humvees with machine guns. At least two RPGs as well."

"I have to be overconfident!" Abraham yelled. "I have to believe they'll prevail, because there's _nothing_ we can do from this far away. And because my woman is there."

"So's mine," General Boone said. "At least I think Karen's mine." He began to pace.

Daryl put a hand against a Humvee. He felt like he wanted to vomit.

"Get a hold of yourself, brother," Merle told him.

Daryl swallowed. Merle and Abraham were both right. He knew that. There was no getting to the cabins in time. He turned and saw that Omar was frantically tuning the radio. "Can ya get through?"

Omar looked over at him. "No, not to the cabins or the school. I can't reach Colonel Taggart at the plantation either. I don't just mean that no one is answering. I think they've somehow jammed the transmission."

"We've got to take them out at the knees," Merle insisted. "Take down Harold and Gomez and Sanchez, and the rebels up north will fold. Even if they've seized the cabins, we'll get them back within the week."

Daryl could taste the bile in the back of his mouth, and it made him angrier. "So how we gonna attack?"

Merle waved in his advisers. General Wilson spread out a map on the hood of a Humvee, took out a pen, and marked the prison. They debated the best entry points. Merle wanted to attack in the middle of the negotiations – just launch an RPG into the back line and go head to head right then and there, when all their forces were exposed.

Boone argued that would lead to too much loss of life. He wanted to sneak in from the woods behind the prison, on foot, cutting the back fence, when they weren't expected, and scaling the wall before taking them by surprise.

General Wilson wanted to take a three-pronged approach, splitting the troops and invading simultaneously from multiple sides.

Abraham wanted to make use of the walkers that they'd seen piled up in the distance, against the prison fence. "Cut a hole in the fence with our weapons on our first attack, and then let them flood in and finish the job."

Daryl didn't want to do any of that yet. "Listen," he said. "Gomez's men probably took the plantation, but Colonel Taggart and Cap'n Anderson must of put up a good fight. There won't be many of Gomez's men left alive. With this force, we can easily take the plantation back. Now, they's expectin' us to come back to the prison soon. They ain't expectin' us at the plantation. We can take the survivin' troops by surprise, and then we'll have all their guns and ammo and that other tank and Humvee, and we can arm everyone on that plantation who can join us in the fight. _Then_ we take the prison."

"Ha ha, baby brother!" Merle clapped him on the back with an open palm. "I like the way you think. I'll go pretend to make a truce with them. Agree to Harold's terms. I'll bring General Wilson and a few other men with me. And while I'm doing that, y'all, under General Boone, take back the plantation. Then we'll meet you back there. And when they're celebrating their victory, thinking I've caved…that's when we'll invade."

"I don't know, Your Highness," General Boone said. "If you show up to form the truce with just a few men, they may get suspicious. They'll wonder where the others are, and they may take the opportunity of a limited force to assassinate you."

"Hmmm…." Merle rubbed his chin.

Boone glanced at his watch. "We have forty minutes before we're supposed to meet. We can be at the plantation by then. When we don't show up for the negotiations, they may very well come looking for us, but not likely with their _entire_ force. We'll have taken back the plantation by the time they find us there, and we can fight from a defensive position. I prefer to play defense."

"And if they don't come lookin' for us?" Merle asked.

"Night will fall," General Wilson said, "and night is a better time to attack."

[*]

Colonel Derringer looked at his watch again. "It's been quite a while," he said.

"Let me just go check," Carol told him apologetically. "I really have no idea what's taking so long. I'll try to open the gate again myself."

When she got down the ladder, a defensive army was approaching the front gate. Marching down the hill, fully armed, were Rick, Michonne, Zach, Morgan, Darlene, Glenn, Roscoe, Karen, Halley, Mateo, Sasha, Tara, and even Father Gabriel, who held his rifle somewhat nervously. Sweat broke out across his dark brow. Greg walked more confidently beside him, holding a single grenade in his one hand. He hadn't learned to shoot one-armed yet, but he was ready to fight.

Tara mounted the back of the truck by the gate and positioned herself behind the machine gun. Rosita was driving their second army truck, which had been at the back gate, slowly and quietly forward, inch by inch, down the dirt road, trying not to be heard. T-Dog was standing behind its machine gun.

"All of the kids have been sent to the park," Glenn told Carol. "Maggie, Beth, and Eugene are with them, and they're all armed, except of course Andre. Mika and Luke just have knives. We've locked the internal gates on both sides of the park. Dr. S and Lilly have set up a triage clinic inside those gates, and they're ready to treat anyone if needed."

Carol nodded. "I'm sorry if I'm wrong about this, but – "

"- Trust your gut, Carol," Glenn told her. "You have it to. It's all you can do."

She nodded. "It's time to tell him we're not letting them in, and see how he reacts." Carol scaled the ladder while everyone readied themselves several yards behind the gates in a line across the dirt roadway.

From her perch in the platform, Carol told Colonel Derringer, "I'm sorry, but we can't let you in. I'm sure you'll understand, given the rebellion that's underway in the Kingdom. We simply don't know who to trust. We mean no offense."

Colonel Derringer's nostrils flared. He rubbed his nose with the back of his hand, like a cocaine addict who has just finished sniffing. He seemed to bite down on his back teeth and then relax. "Of course. We understand perfectly." He walked a few steps behind his largest army truck and said something to someone behind it, someone Carol couldn't see.

Then Colonel Derringer stepped aside, and a soldier with an RPG stepped clear of the truck. Carol quickly raised her rifle and shot him in the head. Though he fell face down on the ground, his death came too late. He had already launched the rocket-propelled grenade dead into the center of the front fence. Fire engulfed the wood.

Carol threw herself down on the platform just as a barrage of enemy gunfire filled the air where she had once stood. From her position flat on her stomach, she saw the flames crawl along the fence line toward the platform.

"Get down from there!" Rick yelled.

As she swung herself sideways and felt her foot hit the third-to-top rung of the ladder, Carol heard the woosh of another rocket propelled grenade, which tore straight through the already weakened, burning portion of the fence and then lodged itself in the porch of the nearest cabin. The planks caught fire and the flames licked their way toward the cabin door.

The heat of the approaching fire now warmed Carol's right cheek as she struggled to gain a foothold on the next rung of the ladder, and that was when the iron tank began to plow through the burning, crumbling gate into their camp.


	95. The Scouts Return

As Carol slid down the last few rungs of the ladder, caught her footing on the earth, and readied her AR-15, she saw her friends taking cover from the tank fire, all except Tara and T-Dog, who remained at the machine guns, and Greg, who had mounted the burning porch of Cabin 7 and now stood on a wooden deacon's bench to get a better position. He pulled the pin out of their only hand grenade with his teeth and lobbed it with one arm inside the open hatch of the tank. There was a hollow, metallic explosion, and the tank stopped shooting.

With the tank now out of commission, the camp's fighters rose up again. Carol opened fire on the soldiers who were spilling into the camp. They looked shocked to discover an entire army awaiting them. The enemy's Humvees rolled in, machine guns blaring, and T-Dog and Tara fired back.

Carol would remember only bits and pieces of what happened next. She would remember the pants leg around Greg's left ankle catching fire as he tried to get off the burning porch. She would remember Karen helping Greg to put the flames out, Roscoe loading him onto an RTV, and Glenn rushing him to triage in the park.

She would remember Father Gabriel turning and running, his back to the battle, but stopping suddenly, swiveling around, and then dashing back into the fray, screaming with a piercing battle cry, and opening fire on a rebel machine gunner while his own body was jerked in all directions by a barrage of bullets.

She would remember Sasha and Rosita seizing that Humvee while its gunner was distracted.

She would remember the way Mateo's head snapped back when he was shot by Colonel Derringer.

She would remember Rick slumped on his knees on the ground with Morgan leaned back in his arms, crying, "Hold on! Hold on, buddy! Hold on!"

She would remember Zach yelling, "They're fallen! They're fallen! The enemy is all fallen!"

She would remember, when the gunfire ceased, finding Darlene sobbing over T-Dog's body as she tried to staunch the bleeding in his shoulder with the shirt she'd ripped from her own back.

But she would not remember how many men she'd killed.

[*]

Merle's men surveyed the plantation from the cover of the woods opposite it. The mansion house was smoldering. A bucket brigade of men and women from the plantation formed a line from the well to the fire, and they were tossing buckets of water one by one into the dwindling flames. There was no hope they could save the mansion, but they were clearly trying to prevent the fire from spreading.

Bodies of numerous soldiers and civilians lay strewn across the grass, and the iron gate was bent and pulled open by chains that still lay on the gravel road.

"Which side's in charge?" Merle asked. "Don't know who the hell's who over there!"

"I can see Colonel Taggart's body on the ground," General Boone replied. "And two armed soldiers are keeping guard over a man on his knees. It's hard to make out his face the way his head is bent, but I'm pretty sure that prisoner is Captain Anderson. He was loyal to you. I think our side lost this one."

"Fuck," Merle muttered.

Daryl could see four armed men walking back and forth, barking at the bucket brigade like slave masters. No doubt the conquerors wanted the crops, arsenal, smokehouse, and dairy spared the flames, since they hoped to enjoy the spoils.

Two more armed men stood guard by the tank, which was inside the gates and pointed inward toward the camp.

The servants' quarters was still intact, though it was riddled with bullet holes in some spots. Two soldiers stood guard outside Janice's door, which led Daryl to believe a third soldier was _inside_ that bedroom with her. He hoped, for her sake, that she'd invited him in there instead of him forcing his way in. "Think they got eleven men survivin'," he said, counting the one he suspected was with Janice.

"I see ten," General Wilson replied.

While Daryl was watching, the door to Janice's room swung open. She was wearing a red negligee this time, which was opened over her completely bare breasts. The eyes of both of the soldiers standing on either side of the door fell straight to her chest. Janice hooked a finger through the belt loop of one guard and tugged him gently, coquettishly inside. He kicked the door shut behind himself.

"Sweet Jesus," General Wilson muttered. "Who _is_ that woman?"

"A sympathizer with the enemy now," Merle muttered.

"Wouldn't be so sure of that," Daryl said.

A moment later, the door swung open again. The remaining soldier on guard looked momentarily confused at the fact that it had opened so soon, but he was quickly distracted when Janice slid a hand up and down the front of his pants. He left his gun leaned against the outside wall and walked into her room. The door closed again.

"Should attack now," Daryl said. "While they's preoccupied with the fire and Janice."

"I say we pick them off with snipers," General Wilson suggested. "I have one. How about you, General?"

"I've got Omar and Abraham," General Boone replied. "They're both excellent shots."

"And I've got me an ex-Marine sniper," Merle said. "That's four. Two shots per. They won't know what the hell hit 'em. Let's send 'em in!"

[*]

The teenagers worked hardest to put out the fires. It was Patrick who had thought of collecting fire extinguishers from all the cabins even before the kids were locked behind the gates of the park, and he tore down with a golf cart full of them when the shooting was over.

The fire had consumed the entire front line of the fence and now threatened to begin eating up the east and west sides. Beth, Sophia, Carl, and Patrick sprayed down the fence with the extinguishers, while those adults who weren't wounded or treating the wounded worked to put out the cabin fire with buckets of water and shovels full of dirt.

The side fences were spared, except for a few planks, but the front fence was now gone, and Cabin 7 was half consumed. The fire claimed no other homes, but it drew about a dozen walkers from the woods, which Zach, Carol, and Glenn picked off.

[*]

Crossbow readied, Daryl spilled inside the front gate of the plantation behind General Boone. Once they were in position, the snipers had taken down all eight of the soldiers in less than sixty seconds. General Wilson now went to work calming down the plantation survivors while Boone, Daryl, Omar, and Merle rushed toward Janice's door.

Daryl kicked it in.

As he began to sweep the room, he found the barrel of a rifle pointed at his face, and Janice behind it, her negligee now tied close over her chest.

One dead, naked soldier lay on the floor on the far side of the bed, as though his body had been rolled off the mattress after he was slain. Blood clotted at the back of his neck where a blade appeared to have been thrust through from behind.

Another soldier lay splayed sideways across the bed, with his belt unbuckled and fly unzipped and a bullet hole in his head. He was so horny he must not have even noticed the dead body on the floor until he had his pants undone, but by then it was too late.

The third soldier was slumped, fully dressed, immediately inside the door, and beside him lay a white pillow with feathers spilling out of two bullet holes.

"I take it you's with us then?" Daryl asked.

"If you lower that bow I am," Janice said.

Daryl did, and so Janice lowered the rifle she'd taken from one of the soldiers.

"Thought ya was gonna wait to see who won this thing."

"Well, they made the mistake of invading _my_ home."

Boone crept into the room and surveyed the scene. "How in the hell did you manage …"

"I used a knife for the first one. Then I used his pistol on the next two soldiers, with a pillow to muffle the shots. And then I grabbed the second one's rifle, because I heard more gunshots outside. I thought you were with the rebels."

Merle came in the room now, a big shit-eating grin on his face. "Well, well, well! Janice!" He whistled. "Wooh-whee, girl!" He looked around at the fallen bodies. "Makes me want to fuck you something awful."

"Well, those days are past, aren't they?"

"They are if I want to share my queen's bed, which it so happens I _do_. Still…" he shook his head. "You're something else, darlin'. Now tell me, who here on this plantation is still alive who can fight in my Army? Because we've got a Kingdom to take back."

[*]

Rosita smoothed down the hair at the back of Roscoe's head as she sat beside him. "You've got the good blood, baby," she said, and kissed him on the forehead.

He closed his eyes and squeezed the blue ball Dr. S had put in his hand. He was a universal donor, and right now blood was pumping through tubes attached to both his right and left arms into T-Dog on one side and Morgan on the other. Both had lost a great deal of blood from gunshot wounds.

Carol handed Rosita an open bottle of Gatorade she'd claimed from the pantry, and Rosita brought it to Roscoe's lips. "Drink up," she told him softly.

Meanwhile, Darlene was treating the third-degree burns on Greg's leg. He'd already lost half of his left arm to a walker, and now it looked like his lower left leg would be permanently scarred. "You're like a clock that keeps on ticking," Darlene told him.

Lilly was stitching up Rick where he'd been slashed across the side by a bayonet, and Tara was recovering from a busted ear drum. Dr. S was going from patient to patient to check on their status.

In the end, T-Dog pulled through alive. Morgan did not.

The camp fiefdom barely paused to breathe. The bodies of the enemy were rolled down a steep hill outside the west gate, so that the smell of fresh blood might draw the walkers away from the gaping hole in their defenses at the front. The bodies of their own – Morgan, Mateo, and Father Gabriel - were buried in the camp cemetery that had already swallowed the bodies of Lori and Jody and that bore memorial crosses for Andrea and Bob.

The children were taken to the Big Cabin and fed. In Andre and Carl's room, Andre and Luke drifted off together in one bed, and Mika and Meghan in the other, in a giant, sniffling sleepover of mutual comfort. Beth sang them to sleep and then nodded off there herself, on the floor. Carl draped a blanket over her before going to the living room, where he lay out a sleeping bag on the floor next to Patrick's. Sophia settled on the couch. The three talked to one another about the tragic events of the day and fell asleep somewhere between words.

Rosita assumed watch in the east stand. Halley took up a post on the west fence. Zach scoured the perimeter from the tower, and Maggie – over Glenn's protests – stood guard on the platform at the rear fence.

Michonne and Karen formed a barrier of vehicles where the front fence line used to be using the tank, Humvees, and army truck they'd taken from their conquered enemies as well as several of their own pick-ups.

Carol, along with Glenn and Sasha, maintained a vigilant foot patrol. "We should try to reach Abe on the radio to let him know Colonel Derringer was with the rebels," Sasha told Carol as they neared one another in their foot patrols. "Maybe it's working now."

Carol slowed to a stop. "I would if we could. But the radio was on the porch of Cabin 7 last time we used it. We were trying to get better reception. It caught fire. It's melted beyond use now."

Sasha sighed heavily. "So we just wait and hope they come back?"

Carol couldn't stand to wait indefinitely. She nodded to the empty space beyond the vehicles, where a few fireflies had begun to flash in the darkness that was closing like a curtain over the last of the setting sun. "Tomorrow, after some of us have gotten some rest, we start rebuilding that fence. Maybe even expand the sides to take in a few more cabins. Once we've rebuilt it, if Daryl and Abraham _still_ aren't back, we send a scouting party to find out what happened."

Sasha nodded. They walked past one another again, weapons readied.

[*]

Between all the soldiers Abraham, General Wilson, and Merle had brought, a freed Captain Anderson, General Boone, Daryl, Omar, and the eight survivors they had recruited and armed from the plantation, Merle's forces now numbered almost sixty men, two tanks, and ten army vehicles.

That army now lined the plantation in a defensive posture, beneath a half moon and a clear sky full of stars. They were waiting for the rebels from the prison to come looking for them, or for the two scouts Merle had sent ahead to return with news. The scouts had left for the prison at the same time the army had left for the plantation.

Meanwhile, Omar had been trying to get in touch with the cabins and the school again. Whoever or whatever had been jamming the frequency must have been taken down, because he finally got a response. "I'm through to the school! The President's on!"

General Boone, with Daryl fast on his heels, ran over to the radio. It soon became clear to Daryl that it was Boone's son-in-law who was on the other end of the line. The man, whom Boone called Anthony, had a faint accent of some kind (Daryl was no good at identifying accents, but the man sure as shit wasn't Southern) and he sounded several years older than Boone's daughter had earlier, maybe mid-thirties.

When Boone warned him of Colonel Derringer's involvement, Anthony reported that he'd seen no sign of the Colonel and had not been able to reach him by radio for the entire day. No rebels had invaded the school.

Boone turned to Daryl. "That probably means they didn't make it past the cabins."

Daryl breathed in a sigh of relief, but his relief was soon swallowed by worry. Derringer may have been destroyed, but at what cost? Who had been lost?

Anthony went on to say that, in the absence of a defensive patrol, a raiding party of eight Pillagers had attacked the school. "We fought them off," Anthony said. "We killed six men. Two retreated. But they cut up the fence badly, and now we have about a dozen walkers pressing in at the front of the school. I'm sure more are making their way here. And I'm afraid the two Pillagers who escaped are going to bring the entire Outpost back to invade. They know we have no patrol now, and that we'll be busy clearing walkers. I don't think we can win against them."

"Shit," Boone muttered.

"The rear of the school is still mostly clear of walkers," President Anthony continued. "And our vehicles are there. So I'm planning to evacuate out the back while we still can. The science teacher has made explosives, and we plan to booby trap the school to take out some of the Pillagers when they come for us. It would mean sacrificing the school, but I think it's lost anyway. Better lost taking the Pillagers down."

Boone lowered his head. Daryl couldn't imagine how he would feel if someone had just told him his home was about to be destroyed. "I think that's wise," Boone replied finally. "It's all you can do at this point. Save the women. Save the children."

"Yes, sir," Anthony replied.

"Any causalities? In the fight against the raiding party?"

"We lost two."

Boone took in a shaky breath. "Who?"

There was dead silence on the other end of the radio.

"Come in, come in," Boone said.

"I'm here," came Anthony's reply. "We lost Matthew."

Boone sighed, but he didn't seem deeply pained. Whoever Matthew was, Daryl surmised, Boone wasn't particularly close to him. "And?"

"And…" Anthony's swallow was audible through the radio. "Sir, I _tried_ to talk him into staying in the central library with the women and children and elders. I _did_. But every capable shot was desperately needed in the fight, and he knew it. He insisted on joining in. I couldn't have stopped him if I tried."

Boone closed his eyes. "Stopped who?"

"Jack. He died bravely, sir. He died saving others."

Boone's hand slipped from the microphone. He stumbled back several steps. His shoulders began to shake, and he walked away toward a tree, against which he leaned and hid his face.

"His son?" Daryl asked Omar.

Omar nodded solemnly. "Jack's his oldest surviving boy. _Was_ his oldest surviving boy. He was going to turn sixteen in a couple of months and join the army."

Merle, who had overheard the conversation, seized the microphone. "This is the King. Half of General Wilson's troops are still patrolling the RV fiefdom and Village fiefdom north of you. It's secure. They're loyal to me. It's two hours from you, but I advise you to retreat in that direction when you evacuate." He turned and hollered over to General Wilson, "Your fiefdom will take in temporary refugees, won't it?"

General Wilson walked over and received an explanation of the situation. He took the microphone from Merle. "This is General Wilson. Radio ahead to Mayor O'Connor. I can't reach him from this far, but you can. Tell him I referred you. I'm sure the Village fiefdom will take you in temporarily if you can bring your own food. You can camp in our courtyard."

"Thank you, sir."

"Once you get one hour north," General Wilson continued, "you'll hit my military checkpoint. The password is now Supercalafragiliousexpialadocious. You'll be in secure territory once you get past that checkpoint. Another hour and you'll be at the village."

Merle took the microphone back. "Stay at the village until we finish this war and figure out where to resettle everyone. We don't know what the hell's gonna be left standing."

"Yes, Your Highness," Anthony replied.

"And when you get to General Wilson's checkpoint," Merle told him, "tell them to radio ahead to Colonel Smith. Transmission should reach him from there. Smith's patrolling the Parthenon and the Bowling Green fiefdom. Have him send a unit of six to ten, whatever he thinks he can spare, to the cabin fiefdom to find out what happened and to offer any aid he can."

"Yes, sir."

When President Anthony signed off, Omar looked at Boone still leaned against the tree, his back to the army, his shoulders heaving. "Man's lost half his children now," Omar said. "Only three out of six left."

Daryl wished there was something he could do for the general, but he knew there wasn't – he could only fight for the Kingdom, and by extension, for the rest of Boone's children, too. He turned back to Omar. "Try the cabins again?"

"Trust me, I've _been_ trying." He began to tune the radio.

Suddenly, a dozen soldiers rifles cocked all around him. In response to the sound, Daryl instinctively leveled his crossbow in the direction of the road.

"Hold your fire!" Merle boomed as he looked through a pair of binoculars. "It's the scouts!"

The scouts neared the torn-down gate in a pick-up. A third man was wedged between them on the long front bench seat. They got out and walked with the man toward the plantation. The prisoner – if that's what he was – had shaggy blonde hair and an uneven beard with a long mustache.

"Hell's this?" Merle asked them when they neared.

"We found this man alone, sneaking down the road, away from the prison," one of the scouts answered. "He was deserting. He was one of the original inhabitants of the fiefdom. His name's Axel."

"Axel? Hell kind of name is that?" Merle looked Axel over suspiciously. Then he looked back at the scout. "What did you learn?"

"We came in low, through the woods," the scout answered, "and then took cover in the gully and waited for them to come out to meet you for the negotiations. We heard them talking when you didn't show."

"They surmised that you were just buying time so you could come back here and take the plantation," the other scout said, "but they aren't going to come attack you here. They don't want to give you the defensive advantage, and they don't believe you have enough men to mount an attack of the prison. They assume you lost several soldiers taking the plantation back."

"Didn't lose a goddamn one," Merle said. " _Gained_ several in fact."

"They haven't been able to get in touch with Colonel Derringer up north," the scout continued, "and they're afraid he was defeated by the cabin fiefdom."

"So what the hell are they planning to do?" Merle asked.

"It sounds like they're going to wait for you to attack the prison," the scout said. "And they assume you'll lose that battle. But that's where this man can help." He gently pushed Axel forward.

Axel swallowed. "I don't want to be a part of this revolt," he said. "I thought everything was just fine the way it was, with you in charge, Your Highness. So do at least twenty other people in that prison. But General Gomez came in there last week and declared himself in charge of the whole fiefdom. He shot our Prison Board. Executed all five of them, one by one. He said we had to call him _The Warden_. He asked who was with him and who was against him, and he locked up all the ones who wanted no part of the rebellion. They're in cells in there. Fifteen women and children, six men. I pretended to be for him just so I wouldn't get locked up, but I ain't. I'm for you, Your Highness, and I can tell you what cell block to avoid so you don't kill any innocent people, and I can tell you where the blind spot is along the prison wall, where nothing can be seen from the tower."

Merle whistled over one of his captains. "Then tell Captain Hubbard here. He used to work for the CIA. I think he'll know if you're telling us the truth."

Axel nodded nervously, and Captain Hubbard led him off for a private interview.


	96. A Dark and Stormy Night

Under cover of nightfall, King Merle's forces approached the prison from three directions. Abraham's unit of ten men distracted the enemy by appearing to invade loudly from the east. They rolled up one of the two tanks, made an excessive display of machine gun fire, and lobbed two grenades over the fence, drawing most of the soldiers – and most of the fire - to that side of the prison the yard.

A larger force of thirty men, under the joint command of Merle and General Wilson, crowded together by the stone wall on the west side of the prison, in a blind spot where Axel had said there was no line of vision from the tower, and blew the wall apart with TNT before flooding in to attack the preoccupied enemy from behind.

Meanwhile, another unit of fifteen men, under the leadership of General Boone, cut through the barbwire fence in back and jogged quietly to the rear of the prison, where they entered through a door Axel had left propped open for them by a rock. Daryl was among them. For this task, he had traded his crossbow for an AR-15. He shot the first guard to come into sight, and he was pulling the cell keys off his fallen body when he heard General Boone and Omar pop off two more guards.

"Unlock the cells!" Boone commanded Daryl. "We'll stand guard while you do."

Daryl shoulder his rifle and readied the keys. When he got to the first cell, inside was a screaming woman and General Tomas Gomez, his belt unbuckled and his fly unzipped. The woman's shirt was torn. Gomez clearly hadn't been expecting an invasion, and so he was not out in the yard with the rest of his soldiers. His attempted rape had been interrupted by all the gunfire, and he was now frantically trying to get the handgun he'd been holding on the woman to un-jam so he could fight back.

Omar shot him through an opening between the bars, and Daryl quickly unlocked the cell.

"It's all right. It's all right," Omar soothed the woman who shrank back against a corner of the cell wall. "We're here to free you, not to hurt you." He grabbed a blanket from the bunk and wrapped it around her torn shirt.

"Get her and the other innocents out and into the cover of the woods," General Boone commanded as Daryl unlocked cell door after cell door. Boone pointed to five of his soldiers and then to Omar to indicate they should go with him to cover the refugees. "The rest of us will finish clearing the prison."

Omar nodded, put an arm around the shaking woman, held his rifle in one hand, and began leading her out. The other five soldiers followed, ushering more of the innocents down the hall to the back door.

When the cells were empty, General Boone, Daryl, and the remaining soldiers cautiously swept the halls of the prison as the sound of artillery fire echoed outside the walls. Daryl turned a corner in one hallway and found himself face to face with an unarmed Harold and two armed members of his security detail. Daryl immediately took one of the security men down but was certain the second would kill him while he did so. For a tenth of a second, he believed he was dead, but then his right ear rang, and the second man slumped to the ground.

The barrel of his gun trained on Harold, General Boone now flanked Daryl's side. Harold raised his arms, and, out of his left ear alone, Daryl heard him say, "I surrender."

Daryl was considering what to do to restrain their captured prisoner when General Boone said, "You're the reason my son is dead."

"What?" Harold asked.

"You seduced half of my men to your side. I don't know _what_ you promised them, but they abandoned sense and morality for it. And the other half of my men you lured down here to battle you. Because of you, my family was left defenseless, and the Pillagers slew my boy. He was just fifteen."

"I don't know any – " Harold's head snapped back, and blood dripped from his forehead. His body dropped to the cinderblock floor.

Boone, his jaw clinched tight, lowered his lightly smoking rifle.

"C'mon," Daryl said. "Got to keep clearin'."

[*]

The woods to the east of the prison, and some of the field, were ablaze. The trees had caught fire when an enemy soldier fired an RPG toward Abraham's unit. It hadn't rained in days, and the dry branches quickly caught fire. The flames now illuminated the horde of walkers that was making its way toward the sounds of war and the smell of death. There was no hope of putting out those flames, but the enemy soldiers had already ceased firing. They were all dead except for General Sanchez, who abandoned his troops and escaped on foot desperately into the surrounding forest. Walkers would have him for dinner soon enough.

Merle sounded the retreat. The rescued innocents were loaded onto an army truck. The soldiers jumped into and on Humvees, motorcycles, and pick-ups to flee the fire and the walkers. They left the bodies of their friends behind to burn alongside those of their enemies.

Only when they were back at the plantation did they count the missing. Twelve soldiers didn't make it back. Most of the missing were from the brave unit that had distracted the enemy and drawn their fire. Daryl roamed the plantation, searching every surviving face as medics worked to treat the wounded, but Abraham was not among them.

"We did it, brother!" said Merle, clamping a hand down on Daryl's shoulder. "We beat those fuckers!"

Daryl was in no mood to celebrate. "Gotta go," he said, shrugging off Merle's hand. "Got to get back to them cabins."

A boom of thunder cracked across the dark sky. Daryl looked up as a torrent of rain poured down. "Stay the night!" Merle shouted over the storm as soldiers and refugees took shelter in the barn, carriage house, and servant's quarters. "It's dark as a sack of black cats out there. Likely gonna be flash floods on the road. Trees down. Y'all ain't gettin' nowhere in this."

[*]

It wasn't storming at the cabins, though a late spring breeze cooled the air. Rick, a thick bandage wrapped around his side beneath his white T-shirt, came to relieve Michonne on foot patrol by the vehicles. "It's one in the morning. You've been here for hours. Lily stitched me up good, and I slept some. You go get some sleep. I'll take over for you."

Behind him was Roscoe, after a nap and a lot of Gatorade, come to offer to relieve Carol, and Halley to give Sasha a break.

Wearily, the women agreed to head inside, but just as they were walking to an RTV to drive to their cabins, Zach's voice called through the bullhorn from the watchtower: "Humvee and two pick-ups approaching from the road below. Flying a flag of the Kingdom. And a white flag."

Carol and Michonne caught each other's eyes. Together with Sasha they walked back to the line of cars and crouched behind them alongside Roscoe, Halley, and Rick, rifles ready. By the time the Humvee and pick-ups had reached them, Rosita and Glenn had also joined them from the east and west stands.

The lead Humvee purred to an idling stop, and the door creaked open. A skinny, pale man with whispy reddish-brown hair, dressed in thick, tan canvas work pants, a black flak jacket, and a green helmet stepped out. He had an M16 on his shoulder and his hands in the air. "Is anyone there behind those vehicles?" He spoke with a thick, southern drawl that wasn't Georgian.

Glances were exchanged, but no one yet answered him.

"I can see the barrel of a rifle, so I know y'all's there. My name's Colonel Smith. I'm from the Bowling Green fiefdom in southern Kentucky. King Merle sent word that I was to come here and evaluate the damage, help you to rebuild, and send word of your condition. The password was Bob's Your Uncle, and now it's supercalafragiliciousexpialadocious. I don't know which one y'all's usin'."

Carol looked at Michonne who looked at Rick who looked at Glenn. No one moved.

"Look, I can understand y'all's a bit jumpy, what with the rebels about, and it looks like they did a number on your fence, but I reckon y'all took 'em down, based on the fact that you've got their tank forming part of this vehicular fence here and it looks a bit black around the manhole, like maybe you done chucked a grenade down in there. And I also don't hear any women screamin' inside or any children cryin'. So I tell you what. One of my soldiers here is gonna step out with a radio. Just a radio, ain't a bomb. And we are gonna try to reach the King with it. And he's gonna tell y'all I'm on the up and up, a'ight?"

Carol heard the door of a pick-up open and the clang of and object on the hood. The soldier turned the volume of the radio way up, and the sound of static drifted to behind the cars.

"Come in, come in, come in," the soldier said, and then there was a response – a familiar voice - General Boone's.

[*]

Sitting on a rocking chair on the covered porch of the servant's quarters, Daryl listened to the wind whistle and watched the rain fall. It had gone from a torrent to a lighter but still steady pelting. A good inch of standing water pooled on the muddy earth below the porch.

Janice, dressed in blue jeans and a modest t-shirt, and looking very much less the whore than she had when they left for the prison, approached him. "Come inside," she told him. "Come into my room. Come out of the rain."

"Nah." Daryl could think of nothing but his girls. Part of him wanted to rush through the rain, flash floods and visibility be damned, straight to those cabins. And part of him wanted to stay here forever on this porch, so that if Carol or Sophia were dead, he'd never have to know.

"I'm not trying to seduce you. I already have Omar and one of the prison refugees in there. Fully clothed, mind you. Just taking shelter from the rain."

"Wanna watch the rain." A streak of lightening flashed across the sky, brighter even than the distant flames of the forest fire, which appeared to be petering out in the wake of the rain.

"I'm sorry about your friend Abraham. I'm praying for your wife and your daughter. Carol, Omar said? And what's your daughter's name?"

"Sophia."

"Sophia," she repeated softly.

Daryl closed his eyes. "I also got Mika. And Luke. They ain't mine, really, but…long as yer prayin'."

"They'll all be in my prayers."

He gripped the arms of the rocking chair tightly until his knuckled turned almost white.

"You know," she said, her words nearly drowned by the sounds of the storm, but not quite, "God hears the sinner's earnest prayer, even before the holy man's." She turned and went inside, leaving him alone on the porch.

A few minutes later, General Boone came out of the Humvee in which he'd taken solitary shelter. It was parked several yards away from the servant's quarters in the grass. He dashed through the rain, mounted the porch, took off his black beret, and shook the rain out of his thick, lightly graying dark hair before sitting down on the rocking chair next to Daryl.

Daryl didn't want to talk to General Boone. He didn't want to talk to anyone. He was trying not to feel the fear that was wrapping its tentacles around his mind. The spraying rain blew in a thick mist under the awning of the porch, wetting Daryl like dew.

General Boone cleared his throat, but before he could speak, Daryl held up a staying hand. "Whatchya did back there in the prison...that's 'tween you and yer conscience. Ya ain't got to explain it to me. "

"That's not what I came to talk about. I lost the transmission, but the signal held long enough to get some news. My people made it safely to the military checkpoint outside the village fiefdom. The commander of that checkpoint reached Colonel Smith on the radio. He arrived at the cabins a little while ago."

For a painful moment, Daryl felt as though his heart had stopped beating in his chest.

"He put Sasha on the radio," General Boone continued, "and I spoke with her. You lost your front fence and one cabin, Mateo, Father Gabriel, and Morgan. But your people have defeated Colonel Derringer. Your wife, the children, and everyone else in your fiefdom are alive."

A damn broke open somewhere inside of him, and Daryl began to sob with relief.

[*]

Sasha sat slumped against Colonel Smith's Humvee. She wept as the radio died to static on the hood. Colonel Smith paced away from the uncomfortable scene and spoke to Rick. Eventually, Sasha's cries stilled, and she rose and wiped her eyes and nose with the back of her arm. Carol approached her to offer a comforting group embrace, which she shook off like a suffocating blanket. Sasha unshouldered her rifle. "I should keep patrolling."

[*]

A bare foot nudged Daryl's shoulder. "Time to rise and shine, sugar." He'd slept so hard that he'd drooled like a baby, and as he moved his head, his face wiped dry against the sleeping bag. For a moment, he couldn't remember where he was.

He looked at the red toenail polish on the bare foot that had just nudged him and then up a long pair of bare, slender legs to the hem of the t-shirt that fell just at Janice's thighs. He blinked.

"The big important manly men are discussing big important things outside," Janice said. "You may want to join them."

Daryl sat up from the floor and rubbed his eyes. He saw another sleeping bag on the floor next to the bed, where Janice had slept last night, and in her bed lay Omar, fully clothed and on top of the blanket. He was sleeping on his side with his arm protectively draped around the woman they'd snatched from Gomez's clutches last night.

Daryl stood up, gathered his crossbow, rifle, and pack, and made his way outside. There, Merle, General Boone, and General Wilson were gathered around the hood of a pick-up truck, over which was spread a map and an open notebook. Merle motioned to the fire pit, over which the coffee pot hung, and Daryl grabbed a cup and got himself a drink before joining them.

Merle explained that he was condensing his Kingdom. With his army now reduced, he was concerned about patrolling so large an area. The prison was uninhabitable, with so much of its fence and wall destroyed, the fire, and the walkers.

The plantation was also to be abandoned, Daryl learned. The iron gate and mansion had been destroyed when the rebels invaded. Last night, the wind had torn off half the roof of the barn. Worst of all, their one well, according to the Mayor, was about to run completely dry in four to six days – a fact the Town Council had been hiding from its people.

"So I'm shutting down these two fiefdoms," Merle explained. "The cabins will now be the southern border of my Kingdom. Three men from the prison and four from the plantation have agreed to join my army. So they'll be housed in army barracks. I'm taking a married couple with three children from the prison into my royal court in the Parthenon. The Bowling Green fiefdom will take the rest of the prison refugees. The village fiefdom will take everyone else from the plantation." Merle nodded to General Wilson. "The Mayor has agreed that four chickens can go to the cabins, because I'm moving all of General Boone's people there. That way, he's still in charge of patrolling his own fiefdom."

" _All_ of 'em?" Daryl asked. "How many's that?"

"Twenty-seven," Merle said.

"Twenty-nine," Boone corrected him. "If you count me and Omar."

"I know it's a lot to take in," Merle told Daryl, "but y'all've got plenty of cabins you ain't fenced in."

"My people will build the fence line around the other cabins themselves," General Boone assured him. "We've got food, guns, ammo, and gasoline. They cleared out all of our supplies from the school before they fled. We'll be your neighbors, not your _dependents._ "

"Who gets the rooster?" Daryl asked.

"My village," General Wilson said. "But we'll bring you the rooster a couple times a year to breed. In the meantime, you'll get plenty of unfertilized eggs to eat from your chickens."

"It'll be a tighter Kingdom," Merle said. "And since I fucked up here..." he sighed, "since I didn't see this rebellion coming, and I didn't fully protect y'all the way I should have, I'll reduce the fiefdoms' payments to five percent going forward. My army will keep purging walkers, take out what's left of the Pillagers, and create and secure trade routes between the fiefdoms."

"That sounds reasonable to me," General Boone said. General Wilson and Daryl both nodded.

[*]

The chickens clucked in the back seat of the Humvee, in a wire cage wedged between Omar and Ivy, the woman they'd rescued from General Gomez. She'd asked to move to the cabins with them. Her husband had, along with the entire Prison Board, been executed by General Gomez at the start of the rebellion, and she had no family among the prison refugees. She felt safe with Omar, who had soothed her to sleep last night, and she didn't want to resettle in Bowling Green with the rest of her camp.

General Boone drove while Daryl rode shotgun. A caravan of General Boone's soldiers followed them - the three men in Abraham's unit who had managed to survive the onslaught of fire they'd drawn, and nine more assigned to him by Merle. "The King is making you a Captain," Boone told Omar. "At my recommendation."

Omar leaned forward in the backseat. "Thank you, sir."

A little later, the Humvee, which was speeding along the road at over seventy miles an hour, began to slow to a crawl. "Weapons ready," General Boone ordered, and Omar took the safety off his rifle while Daryl cocked his crossbow between his knees. In the distance, a figure could be seen stumbling along the side of the road, limping, with a rifle in his right hand.

"Holy shit!" Daryl exclaimed. "Thought he was dead!"

" _He_ probably thought he was dead, too." General Boone eased the vehicle to stop a few feet away from the approaching man and put it in park. The other vehicles stopped behind him. The soldiers remained inside, awaiting his command.

Daryl threw the door open and stepped out. The man in the road raised and leveled his rifle. "Hold it right there!" he ordered. "Drop it or I'll shot!"

Daryl wasn't even pointing his crossbow. He was holding it loosely in his hand. "Abraham, man, it's me. Daryl."

"I don't know you," Abraham replied firmly, inching his finger toward the trigger. There was a bloody gash across his forehead, black soot covering his face and hands, and blood soaking the pants leg around his left ankle.

General Boone got out of the driver's side and strolled over in front of the Humvee. "Captain Ford?" he asked cautiously. "Lower that rifle, soldier."

"Sargent Ford," corrected Abraham, swiveling his rifle toward Boone. "Who are you, Private? Where's my squad? What happened? Why has the scenery changed? And what the hell were those things I killed back in the forest?"

"I'm General James Boone." Boone stepped slowly closer to Abraham.

"You're a general?" Abraham pushed his rifle outward and squinted at Boone's casual fatigues, black beret, and the M-shaped pin on his breast. "Where's Lieutenant Hamilton?"

Boone held out a staying hand. "Lieutenant Hamilton was from the old world, Abraham. You've mentioned him to me before. He used to command you when you were in the U.S. Army. But now you're in the Army of the Kingdom of Merle."

"The Kingdom of what?"

General Boone lowered his hand. "Do you have any idea what year this is, Captain?"

Abraham swallowed. He looked from Daryl to General Boone over his rifle. "It's 2008, isn't it?"

Daryl and General Boone exchanged glances. "No," Boone said. "That was the year before the Outbreak occurred. Those things you saw in the woods - they were the result of a disease, and now, when anyone dies, they turn into one. There is no United States anymore. No government. No U.S. Army. You're in the former state of Georgia. We're all surviving in the midst of an apocalypse. We have been for about a year now. And you're part of a coalition of communities ruled by a man named Merle Dixon. This is his brother, Daryl."

Abraham finally lowered his rifle. He blinked, shook his head hard, and then appeared to be steadying himself.

"What's the last thing you remember, Abraham?" General Boone asked calmly.

"I was in Afghanistan. The soldier in front of me stepped on a land mine. And then I opened my eyes, and I was in a forest in the darkness, in the rain. The trees were on fire. And this..." He winced like a man who was about to vomit. "This _creature_ was thrashing its jaws at me. I grabbed a rock and bashed in its head. Then I found this rifle on the forest floor and fled through the trees, toward the road. I encountered a strangely dressed man who tried to kill me. He looked like an 18th century drummer boy."

"General Sanchez," Boone murmured to Daryl. "Merle said he escaped into the woods."

"So I shot him," Abraham continued. "Before he could shoot me. Then I encounter four more of those _things._ I discovered I had to shoot them in the head to kill them. I've walked for hours now, looking for any sign of humanity."

"You must have suffered amnesia," General Boone reasoned. "Come with us. We're heading home, to the cabins where you and Daryl live, where I'll soon live. They have a good doctor there. He'll examine you. Perhaps your memory will return in time."

Abraham looked at his rifle. He opened and closed a hand over the stock. He looked behind himself, to his left, and then to his right, and then straight at General Boone. He stood up straight and tall, as if his dignity as a soldier was the only anchor holding him to his sanity. "You're my commander?"

"I _am_ your commander," General Boone told him authoritatively. "Now get in the vehicle, soldier."

"Yes, sir!" Abraham replied and limped toward the Humvee.


	97. Combining Camps

One of the soldiers in the caravan, a former E.M.T., cleaned and bandaged Abraham's wounds before they all headed for the cabins. As General Boone drove, Abraham asked a lot of questions about the Outbreak, the Kingdom of Merle, the structure of the army, and its mission. "Why was I in Georgia at the start of this Outbreak?" he asked. "Was I stationed here by the U.S. military when it started?"

"You were in Houston, Texas when it started," General Boone told him. "You worked your way up to Georgia, protecting a man named Eugene Porter. You thought he was a government scientist who held the key to a cure. He turned out to be lying to survive."

"Don't hurt him none though," Daryl said. "He's one of ours now."

"I find it hard to believe I would have been duped into protecting a fake scientist," Abraham said.

"Well, we were all looking for something to cling to at the start of this," General Boone told him.

Abraham leaned forward. "This camp, these cabins…Is my family there?"

"Ya mean Sasha?" Daryl asked.

"Who's Sasha? No, I mean my wife Ellen. My son A.J. My daughter Becca."

Boone swallowed. "I'm sorry, Captain, but they died before you left Texas."

Abraham closed his eyes and fell back against the seat. "How?"

"They died of the superflu," Boone answered, "quickly and relatively painlessly, in their sleep, when this all started."

Later, when they pulled over to the side of the road and Abraham left to take a leak, Daryl said, "You lied to him, didn't you? 'Bout how his family died?"

Boone sighed. "He told me the men he was staying with at the start of this raped his wife while he was on a supply run. When he returned and found out, he reacted by killing them all violently. His rage frightened his family. They gave him the slip and left a note. When he found them, they'd been devoured by walkers. I don't see why he should have to re-live that memory now."

Daryl nodded. He looked out the window at Abraham limping his way back to the Humvee.

The caravan moved on. Abraham asked no more questions. He stared out the window, his head held high, his eyes fixed on the distance, until at last a single sob ripped through him and he leaned his bandaged forehead against the glass.

[*]

When they reached the foot of the mountain, General Boone radioed ahead so they wouldn't be greeted by guns. A few minutes later, the Humvee pulled to a stop before the protective line of vehicles that had replaced the front fence. Carol, Sophia, and Mika were already waiting for Daryl in front of the tank. His heart hammered in his chest with an almost painful excitement as he opened his door.

Carol ran to him and flung her arms around him in a laughing, weeping embrace. She peppered his faces with grateful kisses before planting her lips firmly against his. Daryl kissed her desperately, savoring the warmth and softness of her body against his, until she finally pulled away to let Sophia throw herself against his side in a bear hug. He hugged his not-so-little girl back, kissed the top of her head, and whispered, "Glad yer safe, Soph."

When Sophia had dislodged herself, Mika inched tentatively forward and gave him one quick hug, the first he'd ever received from the little girl.

"Glad yer safe, Meek." He looked up to find Luke sitting on top of the tank, his feet dangling over the side. The boy waved at Daryl. Daryl waved back.

By now, Abraham had approached the scene and was gazing with curiosity at the barrier of cars and the people gathering behind them. As he did so, Sasha shouted his name and came running down the hill. She clamored over the hood of a pick-up, slid off the other side, and ran to him. After throwing her arms around his neck, she jumped up on him and wrapped her legs around his waist, crying, "I thought you were dead."

Abraham stumbled back in surprise, his arms down at his side, instead of embracing her and holding her up.

Sasha slipped down. Abraham grabbed her by the waist and set her on her feet before stepping away. "Ma'am, I'm afraid I don't know you."

Sasha took several steps back and looked at him with confusion.

Daryl explained to Sasha what had happened. Then to Abraham, he said, "This here's Sasha. She's yer girlfriend."

" _Girlfriend_?" He shook his head. "I'm married."

Rosita now drew up beside Sasha and looked from her to Abraham. "Do you remember me?" she asked.

Abraham looked her over. "No, ma'am. And I think I _would_ remember you." His eyes fell to where Rosita's shirt was tied off over her taunt stomach and bare belly button.

This caused Sasha to glower. Roscoe, who had been approaching the reunion scene, overheard Abraham's words and draped his arm possessively around Rosita's shoulders. "I'm Roscoe," he said. "You probably ain't got any recollection of me neither."

"No, I do not." Abraham turned to General Boone. "What are my orders, sir?" he asked, as though it were pointless to try to understand for himself how he fit in here.

"His not to reason why," Roscoe said, "his but to do and die."

"What?" Rosita asked.

"It's Tennyson," Roscoe explained. "Charge of the Light Brigade."

"First you see the doctor," General Boone told Abraham. "Then we get some lunch."

Karen now eased through two parked vehicles and neared them. "Hey," General Boone said softly.

"Hey yourself," she said, and walked toward him hesitantly, as though she wasn't quite sure what they were, publicly, to one another.

Boone closed the gap between them, put a hand on her hip, and bent and kissed her lips quickly before stepping back. He seemed to be fighting off a boyish grin.

[*]

Colonel Smith pulled up his men and headed back to his military checkpoint outside the village fiefdom, leaving General Boone and his men to patrol the cabins. He promised he would escort Boone's people safely to the cabins tomorrow.

Ivy from the prison was introduced to the camp and given Morgan's old room to settle into. Daryl suspected that Omar harbored a secret hope that it would also be his room whenever he was on furlough.

Dr. S examined Abraham. He believed the man had suffered a serious concussion and wished to continue to monitor him. He reported that it was the most "unusual case of amnesia I've ever seen. Abraham's mind has essentially blocked out the past three years of his life. There's no logical reason why a head trauma on the battlefield yesterday should have thrown him back to a particular moment in Afghanistan, but that seems to be what's happened. I think the issue may be more psychological than neurological, a repression of sorts. He's going to have to re-learn everything about our community and the world as it currently stands."

Today, lunch was communal, in the park, and included everyone except for those who were on patrol or standing watch. Sasha sat across from Abraham at a picnic table in the park, along with Carol and Daryl and Roscoe and Rosita, but Abraham showed her no recognition or affection. Sasha kept a polite physical distance but talked to him about their community, its government, its rationing system, and the people in it.

"How did we meet?" Abraham asked Sasha.

Daryl told him how he, Glenn, and Zach had encountered him, Rosita, and Eugene on one of their supply runs and brought them back to their camp. Rosita eyed Abraham curiously but did not mention they had been a couple at that time.

Sasha explained, "You and I grew close when we went on a mission to jam the transmission from Terminus."

" _Grew close_ ," Rosita repeated with a roll of her eyes. Roscoe put a hand across the table and lay it atop hers.

"Terminus?" Abraham asked, which led to a long explanation, and then his response: "This world is deranged."

"You could say that." Roscoe squeezed Rosita's hand and looked her in the eyes. "But there's good things in it, too." Rosita's face grew less sullen, and she smiled affectionately at him.

[*]

General Boone and Omar, in two units with four soldiers each, patrolled the cabins while the other four soldiers were assigned to help chop, shape, and sand wood for the fence. Abraham was left to do that work, because General Boone wasn't ready to trust him with a patrol just yet. Those not laboring on the fence - or standing watch – or, like T-Dog, still recovering from their wounds - were gardening, farming, cleaning, or cooking. But while the camp was busy, and the kids were preoccupied with their own chores, Carol and Daryl snuck to their empty cabin.

The second the front door was kicked shut behind him, Daryl dragged her into his arms and kissed her passionately. He had wanted to be gentle, tender, and slow when they came together again, he had _planned_ to be, but he found himself desperate for her. He tugged at her shirt, and she raised her arms to let him free it from her.

His hands found her breasts, and he squeezed one through the cotton fabric of her bra. His voice thick with wanting, he murmured, "Yer so goddamn beautiful. Need ya so bad." He walked her back into the living room, where they bumped against the couch and stumbled onto it, him atop her. Grappling behind her back, he snapped loose her bra, pushed up the fabric to free her firm breasts, and hungrily took a nipple into his mouth. Carol gasped, arched her back, and tugged at his hair.

Daryl was relieved to find her as eager as him. She was soon fumbling frantically with his belt buckle. Carol jerked down his fly and helped him to shimmy out of his pants.

They ended up rolling off the couch and onto the bearskin rug. Daryl shoved the coffee table roughly aside to give them room. He yanked his shirt off over his head and then went to work on her pants, jerking them off of her legs and tossing them aside. He kissed his way ravenously from her lips to her breasts, which he paid some attention before trailing nips and kisses down to her panties. When he licked her through the silky fabric, Carol whimpered, hooked her fingers in the waistband of her underwear, and began to push them off.

He took over, dragging them just to her knees before he freed his aching erection from his boxers, pushed her legs open, and plunged inside her with a groan. She gasped in surprise at the suddenness of his move, but then she began to jerk her hips in frantic circles. Daryl thrust greedily within her, growing more and more aroused with each of her pleading cries…She buried her hands in his hair and grasped the strands roughly as she begged, "Yes, oh...please, yes!"

They climaxed together, Daryl exploding with an animalistic grunt and seizing the thick hairs of the bearskin rug between his fingers while he spilled into her, Carol crying his name and digging her nails into his scarred flesh. He collapsed, shuddering, atop her, and let out a soft whimper.

Carol pushed against his weight, and he slid his body to the side, until his arm was draped around her and his mouth was pressed lightly against her bare shoulder. He caught his breath as he listened to her catch hers. Eventually, she rolled on her side and pushed her warm, bare, slick flesh against his. She gently kissed his forehead, then his nose, then his cheek, and finally his lips. "Wow," she breathed.

"Yeah."

She giggled.

He smiled and ducked his eyes from hers shyly before raising them again. The smile on her face faltered, and her eyes grew wide. "We forgot to use a condom."

Was that part of why it had felt so damn good? Sex _always_ felt good, of course, but Daryl thought this time had been the best sexual experience of his entire life. He thought maybe it was just the powerful relief of being with Carol again, his overwhelming gratitude in finding her alive, but maybe it was also having no barrier at all between them. "Sorry," he said, even though he wasn't, not really.

She swallowed. "It's okay. I'm pretty sure we'll be fine. The odds are so low."

"So we ain't got to use 'em no more?"

"Well…it's still a tiny risk. We should be careful."

"Maybe we should just...ya know. Leave it to God. Nature. Chance. Whatever."

"You sure you want to do that?" she asked.

"If it happens...it happens. Be here for ya. I ain't goin' nowhere."

"Things aren't settled," she said quietly.

"Nah. But they's _gonna_ be. Rebels are defeated. Now Merle knows who's truly loyal. Word on the radio is them booby traps Boone's people left in the school worked. Killed thirteen Pillagers. That outpost nearest us is 'bout gone now. That gang's dyin' out. Walkers ain't hard to control with a military and a fence. 'Bout to have a lot more people in this camp. Hell, even got chickens now. We're gonna be able to build a life here."

She snuggled in and lay her head on his shoulder. "You never used to be the optimistic type."

"That's 'fore ya loved me."

She rested a hand tenderly on his cheek and searched his eyes. "I'd like to give you a child, Daryl. I really would. But I don't know if I _can_ get pregnant. And if I did...I don't know if it's safe."

He swallowed and nodded. "Understand."

She leaned in and kissed him. "You're a good father to Sophia," she whispered. "A good husband to me. A good protector to Mika. And Luke so cute when he imitates you. We _have_ a family."

"'S a good family." He kissed her back.

The front door rattled and Sophia called, "Why's the cabin door locked? Hello?"

Frantically, they gathered their clothes and began to dress.

[*]

Daryl wiped his arm across his brow, angled the jagged teeth of the saw against a board, and continued his work. The entire camp was filled with the noise of sawing, sanding, and hammering, and the occasional pop-pop of a rifle as walkers emerged from the forest and were picked off by the watch. Daryl glanced over at Abraham, who was driving a new plank of the fence into the ground. He had thrown himself into the building project almost violently. General Boone was not letting him join the army patrol just yet, which was this morning dealing with a small herd swarming a few miles away toward the base of their hill. An explosion had echoed its way to Daryl's ears about a half hour ago. That herd was probably largely gone now, and the army was likely cleaning up the stragglers.

A piece of wood fell from the table to the ground, and Daryl noticed Carol beside him. She extended him a cup of cold lemonade. Sophia, Meghan, and Mika were distributing more to the other workers. Daryl drained the cup, and then held its cool surface against his brow. "It's too bad T-Dog can't help," Carol said. "But Dr. S. said it'll be at least four weeks before he can do any type of hard labor."

"Boone's people'll be here soon. Put 'em to work."

Carol nodded and then her eyes rested on Abraham. Sasha was working alongside him now, quietly but faithfully, occasionally talking to him. "I feel bad for Sasha. Abraham keeps calling her ma'am. And she said he slept on the couch of their cabin last night."

"He said _no_?" Daryl asked.

"She didn't ask him to bed. She's giving him time to adjust. As far as he knows, he was married yesterday morning."

"Mhmhm. Sex might jog his memory though."

Carol snorted. "I don't think that's how it works."

"Why not? Ain't there some word for it, like with athletes, ya know, when they just fall into the moves?"

"Are you talking about muscle memory?" Carol asked.

"Mhm."

"Well I hope sex is less routine than batting exercises for you."

He blushed and ducked his head. "Ain't what I meant."

She smiled. "Of course, we did give each other quite the work out last night."

"Shh!" His eyes darted left and right but no one seemed interested in their conversation, or even within earshot of it. She was right. Their lovemaking last night had been a more prolonged, slower, but no less exerting follow-up to their passionate tumble on the bear skin rug. He smiled at the memory. "Maybe I should come back from war more often."

"No."

[*]

The members of the school fiefdom, led in a caravan by General Boone's Humvee, arrived just before noon and stopped at the barrier of vehicles. General Boone had met them at the army check point, left Omar in charge, and sent Colonel Smith, who was providing the people protection on their journey, back to his patrol around the village fiefdom.

The fence workers, Carol now among them, stopped to turn and look. She surveyed the emerging crowd:

A couple, likely in their early 60s, along with two girls and a boy, spilled out of a van. The children were all below the teenage years, and so Carol assumed they were either adopted survivors or grandchildren.

Next, a 30-something Hispanic couple emerged from a pick-up. Two twin boys, probably six or seven, slid down out of the extended cab. A white couple with a boy and girl spilled out of another pick-up. A station wagon housed a blended family with two brown-skinned, dark haired boys that resembled their 50-something father and a pale, blonde girl that looked like her 40-something mother.

A trio of freckled, red-headed, blue-eyed teenagers hovered together outside a sedan – two older boys, probably somewhere between 17 and 19, and one younger teenage girl - siblings by the looks of them.

There was Boone's oldest daughter, whom Carol only recognized because she was cradling an infant, and, with his arm draped around her, Boone's son-in-law. Two kids stood on either side of them – Boone's children Carter and Joy, Carol presumed. An older, black teenage boy got out of the passenger's side of a car, and from the driver's side there emerged a 40-something balding white man with wire rimmed glasses.

Carol counted about twelve people who appeared capable of working on the fence - not too old, not too young, and not too recently with child. While the men and older teenage boys all had rifles slung over their soldiers, Carol noticed that none of the women, except the grandmother, were armed. Neither was any child younger than about 15, with the exception of Boone's son Carter, who had a hunting knife on his left hip and a small handgun in a holster on his right. The sandy-haired boy had light brown eyes and was, Carol knew from prior conversations, thirteen. He was tall for his age, however, and a full six inches taller than his twelve-year-old sister Joy. His sister had raven hair and hazel eyes more like her father's.

By now, the Council and a few other members of the camp had gathered in the center of the road to greet the newcomers. General Boone first introduced his family to Karen, calling her "the lady I've been seeing."

" _Seeing_?" asked his son Carter. "Like, she's your _girlfriend_?"

General Boone glanced hesitantly at Karen, who smiled and half nodded. "Yes, son," he said, "like that."

His daughter Joy eyed Karen curiously.

Next Boone introduced his adult daughter Samantha, who looked to be in her mid-twenties and had a bright, welcoming smile. She was carrying a few extra pounds of baby weight around her middle. The infant in her arms was a shade darker than herself and had a thick shock of curly black hair. His eyes were shut tight and his face turned inward.

"And this is my grandson," Boone said proudly, "Pioneer."

"Pioneer?" Daryl whispered to Carol. "Hell kind of name is that?"

"Shh!" she whispered back.

To the Cabin Council, General Boone introduced his son-in-law Anthony, an olive-skinned, dark-eyed man who looked to be only ten or fifteen years younger than Boone himself. "He's the leader of our people. The President." Boone motioned to the couple in their early 60s, the one with the three grandchildren. "This is Janet, she's the Treasurer and Secretary, and Roy, he's the People's Representative. Roy and Janet used to run a shooting range in the old world. They're both good shots."

"That's it?" Sasha asked. "That's your entire Council?"

"It's our governing body," Boone replied.

After everyone was introduced, Carol suggested they start unloading their food and ammo into the garages of one of the secured cabins. Glenn and Rick offered to help with that task, while Patrick, Sophia, and Carl volunteered to show the kids and teenagers the park. They walked off with the gaggle of children like tour guides. As they departed, Carl made conversation with Olivia, the red-headed teenage girl. Meanwhile, Boone's son Carter fell into step beside Sophia, jerked his head back to throw his thick brown hair off his forehead, and then glanced at the weapon on her hip. "Cool knife."

Sophia smiled. "Yeah. My dad gave it to me."

"Can I see the woodwork on the handle?"

"Sure." Sophia unclipped the knife from her belt as they walked out of ear shot.

"Uh oh," Carol teased Daryl, who was watching them intently as they disappear up the hill. "Looks like Patrick may have some competition."

"I want you to talk to a couple of people," General Boone said. "Stephen!" The 40-something, balding man with wire rimmed glasses walked over. "This is our resident scientist. He has a Ph.D. in…what was it?"

"Chronic Disease Epidemiology," Stephen answered.

"And yet he still just ended up teaching alongside me at the same high school."

"I wanted my summer's off, James," Stephen said a little defensively.

"He's been studying the disease ever since, and he'd like to continue studying it here, if we could set him up with a lab in one of the garages. He brought a bunch of equipment from the school's science lab."

"Learned anythin'?" Daryl asked him.

"Not much. Not yet. But science is a process." Stephen explained that he was trying to determine why some few people – such as that first baby to die in King Merle's court - were immune to the disease while most others weren't. "And it isn't just babies born into this world who are immune. We've lost a few people in our camp. I've sat up with every one of their bodies to see if they turned. I take DNA samples before they do." He glanced hesitantly at Boone who was gritting his teeth violently. "Jack didn't turn. I've taken some DNA and blood samples from him. And from General Boone, too. Maybe immunity is something the parents pass on, but James had one child die of the superflu and turn at the start of all this, so…if it _is_ passed on, it's not _universally_ passed on to all of the offspring. My equipment is limited, but someone has to study this. Someday, years in the future, maybe the next generation can build on my research and develop a vaccine."

"The Council will discuss giving you space for a lab," Carol told him.

General Boone called over the older, black teenage boy next, who had not trailed after the kids. "Noah, tell them about the hospital."

"If you ever desperately need medical supplies," the boy said, "there's a working hospital in Atlanta. They have generators. Grady Memorial. But the people running it are ….well…let's say it's an abusive regime. I ended up having to escape by night to get away from the place. I grabbed some medical supplies and a gun and food and set out on my own. I was just past the Tennessee boarder two months ago when supply runners from General Boone's camp took me in to their camp. But if you ever do need to attempt to trade with the hospital…I can tell you where it is and who's in charge and what to expect. Just leave me out of it."

"Thank you," Carol told him. "It's good information to have."

"You can catch up to the tour now, Noah," Boone told him. Noah nodded and jogged after the rest of the kids and teenagers. "He's a very hard worker. You can put him to work on the fence."

"We'll be putting to work every one of your people who _can_ work," Carol assured him. "In the meantime, I think our two governments should go to the Council Chambers to confer."

"Then I'll leave you to it." General Boone nodded and then walked off with Karen, saying that he'd left Omar in charge of the checkpoint and that he happened to have one free hour before he had to return to his military duties. If she could possibly think of a way to help him pass that time, he'd be much gratified.

"Guy's got a weird way of askin' for sex," Daryl muttered to Carol.

"Not everyone just crawls into bed naked, you know," she teased.

Daryl snorted, because _she'd_ been the one to do that last night. Carol shoulder bumped him playfully, and then they headed off with the Cabin Council and the School Triumvirate to make plans.


	98. A Tea Party and a Split Decision

Anthony leaned back against a bookcase in the Council Chambers. Daryl sat on the edge of the desk, and Maggie eased down slowly into the desk chair, looking ready to burst any week now. The newcomers Roy and his wife Janet took a seat in the folding chairs.

It was agreed that until more cabins could be safely cleared and secured by the new fence line, some of the newcomers would camp in tents (there were plenty to be found in the cabins) in the safely fenced-in park or on the sofa beds in the living rooms of the inhabited cabins. This arrangement would be temporary, and then the cabins would be reassigned in such a way as to keep families together.

Janet put a pair of glasses on over her gray-blue eyes and suddenly looked very much the elderly librarian. She opened a file folder and lay a set of papers on the desk. "This is our complete inventory," she announced. "Are we going to maintain separate pantries and arsenals, or are we going to combine everything and ration as a single group?"

Carol expressed her opinion that it would be far more efficient if they combined their two camps in all ways and operated as one.

Anthony rubbed the fine black stubble that lined his cheeks. "My people aren't going to be comfortable submitting themselves to a foreign council. We can only agree to combine if we have representation and if my camp approves the merger by a majority vote."

"Can't we just combine our two governments into one Council?" Maggie suggested.

"You'd have much more representation than us," Anthony said. "And that would be a Council of eight. It would be problematic in the event of a tie vote."

"Your group could elect one more representative," Carol suggested. "That would be an odd number. Nine."

"And you'd still have one more representative than us," Anthony replied.

"These are _our_ cabins," Daryl said. "We found 'em, we claimed 'em, and we cleared 'em."

"And my father-in-law is defending them," Anthony replied. "He and his soldiers eliminated an entire herd this morning."

"And we pay King Merle for that service," Sasha noted. "And King Merle pays him. That's not a gift _you're_ giving us."

"Anthony," Roy said softly, "w _e're_ the ones who benefit most from a union. They have crop lands, a possum farm, a rabbit farm, a greenhouse, chickens from the Plantation, and _running water._ Portable electric generators." He scratched the grayish-white hairs of his goatee. "So if all they're asking is one extra representative than us, I think we should agree to that."

Anthony nodded. "Point taken. Though if we do this, we'll need to do it with a two-thirds vote of our people. And we'll need to amend or replace our Charter."

"We'd have to do the same," Carol said. "We have a written Constitution. I think we'd need a _single_ document to represent us all."

They continued to discuss the matter, and in the end, they agreed to recommend a complete merger to their people, who accepted the proposal. The members of the school fiefdom held elections for the ninth spot on the Council, and it was filled by the scientist, Stephen. A new joint Constitution was drafted and ratified by the members of the combined camps. Jobs were assigned, and work on the fence resumed.

[*]

"Don't like the idea of you goin' on this run," Daryl said as Carol zipped up her backpack, pulled it off the bed, and slung it over her shoulder.

"Do you think _I_ liked the idea of you going to war? And that was far more dangerous." She smiled. "It's your turn to stay home with the kids."

"Left a herd blockin' the way last time they went."

"It's probably gone by now." Carol picked up her AR15, which was leaned in the corner. "And if it's not, we'll turn back."

Daryl sighed.

"General Boone is sparing two soldiers to come with us," Carol reassured him. "Omar and Abraham." If Abraham did well on this mission, he would be restored to his position as Captain. "And we're taking our army truck with the good machine gun. Zach is an excellent shot. And Roscoe…well, Roscoe knows where we're going and what solar supplies we need."

"Ain't got to prove nothin'," he muttered. "Last time ya went on a run, ya got shot. 'Member?"

"Well, then, I've got to prove I can do this _without_ getting shot."

"You're a damn stubborn woman. Ya know that?"

"You like it," she teased and stepped forward to kiss him.

"Don't like it," he called after her as she left the bedroom. "Don't like it one damn bit!"

[*]

Carol kissed Sophia and Mika goodbye and piled into the Loew's truck with Roscoe and Zach. They followed their camp's army truck, driven by Captain Omar Safar, with the machine gun manned by Abraham. Their plan was to return to Solis to gather more solar panels, portable generators, back-up batteries, and wires to supply the growing camp. Then they were traveling on to the lumber yard for wood and more nails for the fence. Carol glanced at the rear view mirror as they drove on and saw Daryl standing in the road, his crossbow riding his back, a scowl on his face.

[*]

After Carol was gone, Daryl brought Luke hunting with him and Halley on the east side of the forest, while Mike, Landon, and Olivia hunted together on the west side. The trio of red-headed siblings, aged 19, 17, and 15, had grown up hunting from a young age with their late father, who had died at the onset of the apocalypse, and they'd been keeping the school camp supplied with meat from a nearby forest.

The little Cub Scout took to the forest like a fish to water, and Daryl felt a secret thrill at teaching Luke to identify tracks and sounds. It was so much fun that he nearly forgot his worry over Carol. Not surprisingly, Luke made a bit too much noise, and they returned with only two snakes. They passed Sophia on their way to the skinning table in the park. Her freckled face was under the hood of a car, and Greg was leaning with his one good arm against the side of the vehicle and talking her through some minor repair.

"Want to go huntin' with yer old man tomorrow?" Daryl asked her, but she said she was going to learn to three ways to patch a flat tire tomorrow. Daryl felt a pang of jealousy.

"Why don't you invite Mika?" Sophia teased, standing up straight and wiping off her oily hands with a rag.

Sophia knew full well Mika was repulsed by the very idea of hunting. Daryl was trying to relate to the little girl the way he did to Sophia or Luke, to be a father to her, but he was still having a hard time doing it. "Ready for lunch soon? Gonna eat these snakes. Ain't enough to share for dinner."

"The O'Connor siblings caught a wild hog," Greg said. "They're sectioning it and salting it as we speak."

Damn. Those kids had outdone _him_? Of course, he'd had a little pupil to think about. "So...snake?" he asked, holding up his catch for Sophia to see.

She smiled apologetically. "I already planned to have a picnic today, with Carter and Joy and Patrick and Carl. We're just going to use our rations. I'll be fine."

A picnic? And with _three_ boys? "Hmmm," he murmured doubtfully, but he didn't see any way to reasonably forbid her. "Be careful."

"We're just having it in the playground. It's not like we're going into the woods or anything."

That wasn't the kind of careful he'd meant. Was he going to have to watch out for that Carter Boone boy now, too? Patrick was bad enough, but at least he was socially timid. Carter was as outgoing as his father, and he had the same kind of charm, just a more boyish version of it.

[*]

After showing Luke how to skin the snakes and letting him do a little of the work, Daryl cooked them up. He and Luke chowed down at one of the picnic tables, until Beth came by to tell him it was time for his "studies." These days, Beth tutored each of the kids for an hour a day - each of the cabin-kids, anyway. The school-kids seemed to have their own system of tutors.

Daryl found Mika in the pantry, helping one of the new women - a 40-something, shapely, pale, green-eyed blonde name Deborah - arrange the cans. Deborah's daughter Grace and her stepsons Dallas and Houston, all of whom were ten or under, were also helping. Their father Austin was, not surprisingly, from Texas. Daryl had tried not to laugh the first time he'd heard all those names, and he'd ended up swallowing a snort and sounding like he burped.

"Hey, Meek," he said. "Wanna come back to our cabin for some lunch? Still got me some snake left."

"Snake? Ewww."

"Tastes like chicken."

Mika reluctantly followed him. She ate the snake without further complaint or much conversation. After she'd cleared the plates to the sink, Daryl ventured, "Wanna...play a game or somethin'?"

"Let's have a tea party!"

Daryl supposed he should go along. At least she wanted to do _something_ with him. He ended up getting out Carol's china - the cups and saucers and little tea pot he'd gotten her for Christmas. He was a nervous Mika might break or scrape it, and he resisted the urge to warn her to be more careful at least three times. He let her make the tea and load it up with too much honey so it was drinkable to her, and he even let her have two of the shortbread cookies they had in the pantry, though he only took one for himself.

"You have to raise your pinkie when you sip," she commanded him. "Like this." She held out her pinkie finger and brought the too-big tea cup to her small lips.

"Why?" Daryl asked.

"It's _required_."

Daryl did it, even though he felt ridiculous. He could even hear Merle laughing at him, somewhere in the back of his mind, and had to remind himself there was no one here to see it. He drained his entire tea cup, fast, so he wouldn't have to hold up his damn pinkie again, and then he set it back on the saucer. "Ya like anythin' else sides tea parties?" he asked. "Any...tomboy stuff?"

Mika seemed to consider this. "I like to make campfires," she said at last.

Daryl smiled. "Well then let's go set some shit on fire."

He taught her how to make a better camp fire and how to properly put it out. He showed her how to burn paper to make it look old. "Like something in a museum!" Mika said gleefully. And then, a hand on her little shoulder, he walked her to her lessons with Beth.

[*]

Only about twenty walkers lingered from the original massive herd that had blocked the way, and Omar and Abraham dispensed with them quickly via machine gun fire. The army truck and Lowe's truck roared on to Solis, where Abraham picked off another ten walkers before Carol even got down from the cab.

Zach, Abraham, and Roscoe loaded up the solar panels, backup batteries, wiring, and portable generators while Carol and Omar stood guard.

"How's Ivy settling in?" Omar asked.

Ivy had been settled into Morgan's old room, but she mostly kept to herself. "I think she's still shook up over whatever happened," Carol answered.

Omar sighed. "They were in those cells for a _week_ before we even knew a rebellion was underway."

"Check this out, y'all!" Roscoe yelled. With two hands, he held up a fan. "Don't even need a plug. Just put her in the sun for a bit, set 'er anywhere in the house. We got fifteen of these glorious babies."

"Those will come in handy," Carol assured him. It was now beginning to reach almost ninety degrees in the afternoons. As high in the mountains as they were, however, the temperature dropped into the sixties again at night. With the windows open, nights were not uncomfortable, but it would be good to step inside at the height of the sun and cool off before a fan in the living room.

After Solis, they went on to the lumber yard, where they took care of a dozen more walkers before filling the truck to the brim with wood and boxes of nails. It might have been a perfectly uneventful supply run if they had not stopped to check out a small town, population 985, according to the mud-caked sign at the entrance. The place appeared deserted. Zach wanted to check out the bar.

"Still can't shake the frat boy mentality, can you?" Roscoe teased.

"I was thinking more along the lines of trade," Zach answered. "The army is securing safe trade routes between the fiefdoms. And Omar says there's a prostitute in the Village who takes payment in liquor. She used to live on the Plantation."

Roscoe looked at him coolly.

" _I_ don't want to see her!" Zach exclaimed. "I just mean I bet that makes liquor even more valuable. We can probably trade it to men in the Village who want her services in exchange for fresh milk and butter. They've got cows _and_ goats I hear. We haven't been trading. We should be doing that as much as supply running." He glanced at Carol. "Something to bring up on the Council, maybe?"

"It's a good idea," she agreed.

They pulled the vehicles to a stop along Main Street. Abraham picked up a drifting flyer that advertised 50% off fishing poles when he stepped out. "There's a bait and tackle shop toward the end of the block," he said. "Why don't Omar and I check it out, and then we'll meet back here?"

Carol, who was readying her AR15 to help clear the bar, nodded, and Omar and Abraham got back in the army truck and drove down the street.

There was only a single walker stumbling around in the bar. The owner had likely locked himself inside and later died in there. Carol shot the creature quickly, and then Roscoe rolled the carcass out the front door. The man had apparently been living off of liquor, peanuts, and pretzels until he drunk himself to death, judging by all the empty bottles littering the floor.

The place smelled more than usual, and Carol coughed. Hazy sunlight seeped in through the mostly boarded-up windows.

While much of the liquor and all of the bar snacks were gone, they did manage to find some booze still remaining behind the counter. Carol began packing all the bottles into a big cardboard box.

While Carol packed, Roscoe popped open the last bottle of Maker's and Zach blew the dust out of three shot glasses. "I say we make a toast to today's success," Roscoe declared as he poured.

Carol set the box she'd just filled on the bar and took the glass Zach offered her. All three clinked glasses. The men shot their whiskey down fast, but Carol decided to sip hers. Roscoe wandered over to a dusty, light wood piano against the left wall. Beams of filtered light danced across its surface from the cracks in the boarded-up window above. He sat down and began to play. Carol was looking forward to one of his songs, but the piano sounded awful.

"Damn thing's out of tune," Roscoe muttered.

Just then the door flew opened. Carol, not expecting Omar or Abraham to be back so soon, immediately pointed her rifle in the direction of the swinging door. Three men strolled in cautiously with their hands raised. One, who was somewhat plump and wore a gray Hooligan cap and gold chain around the neck of his white shirt, said, "Whoa, whoa, whoa now."

"They ain't walkers, Tony," a younger, brown-haired man said.

The third man, who looked to be only college age, glanced at Tony nervously.

"No, they aren't," Tony agreed. "Listen, lady, we're peaceful folk. You can see we aren't armed."

Carol could see they _were_ armed, by the bulges beneath their shirts, but those guns weren't easily accessible, and they weren't pointing them. She lowered her rifle but kept a suspicious eye on the men, who took a few steps inward.

Roscoe was no longer sitting at the piano. He was standing with a hand resting on the butt of the pistol in his holster. Zach kept his rifle shouldered for now.

"I'm Tony," the plump man said. "And these are my friends Dave and Randal. Up until now, we thought we were the last people on earth. You folks have a camp around here?"

"Of course we have a camp," Roscoe replied. "Everyone has a camp."

"Where?"

Carol caught Roscoe's eye with a warning glance, and he didn't respond.

"Mind if we sit and have a drink?" Dave asked affably. "We _sure_ could use one. We've just been surviving out there, the three of us, on our own. We saw your truck parked out front and thought...hey, maybe we can make some friends."

Zach walked behind the bar and blew the dust out of three more glasses while Tony, Randal and Dave sat around a circular table. Zach poured them some Fireball, because he sure wasn't about to give them the Maker's.

"What's _in_ that truck anyway?" Dave asked.

"Just some lumber," Roscoe answered.

Tony laughed. "You building houses? There's plenty of empty ones in this world."

"Fences," Zach said as he set the shot glasses down on the table.

"Now that's smart," Dave told him as he pointed at him with the shot glass he'd just picked up. "I guess that means you've got a camp to secure. How big is your camp?"

"Big enough," Roscoe answered.

The three men continued to make casual, seemingly friendly conversation as they sipped their Fireball, but Carol didn't like the way Dave kept asking where their camp was, how big it was, what it had, and especially how many women were there. Roscoe gave him vague, elusive answers to every question while Carol and Zach remained largely silent.

"Man…" Tony rolled the last of his Fireball on his tongue and hissed. "You're lucky to have a woman in your group. I haven't had a piece of ass in _weeks_." His eyes flitted from Roscoe's to Zach's as though judging their reaction to the crass statement. Carol thought he was searching for an ally. Tony grinned in a way that reminded Carol too much of Ed when he was feeling lecherous. That was when she noticed that Tony's hand had disappeared beneath the table.

She didn't know for sure that he was drawing his gun under there. She didn't know for sure that he was going to try to shoot Zach and Roscoe under the table and then take her. But she didn't know for sure he _wasn't_ planning to do it either.

In an instant, Carol made her decision. She barely realized she'd made it when already her rifle was raised and Tony was slumped face down on the table. A small pool of blood oozed out and dripped into the distressed wood.

Roscoe and Zach stared in shock at the fallen man.

Dave and Randal pushed back their chairs with a loud scrape of wood on wood and stood. Randal was still trying to dislodge his handgun from under his shirt when Zach regained his focus and took him down. Dave squeezed off a single shot just as Roscoe fired at him. Roscoe's bullet lodged itself in Dave's forehead, but Dave's bullet only hit the keys of the piano with a strange clank.

Two bodies now lay on the floor and one on the table. Zach breathed in and out, more shook up from the surprise than from the effort required to fire. "Why'd you shoot?"

"He was drawing a gun," Carol answered. "Under the table."

Zach walked over and kicked at Tony's body. Then he lifted up the man's shirt. The butt of his handgun could be seen sticking out of his waistband. It was still securely lodged there.

"I _thought_ he was," Carol managed, still processing what she'd done. "He was going to shoot you and Roscoe under the table."

"Maybe," Zach said, as if he didn't quite believe what he was saying. "Maybe he was _about_ to pull and you stopped him before he could."

"Yeah," Roscoe said. "That's exactly what happened, Carol. He was about to pull. You saved us."

Carol swallowed. "I killed an innocent man, didn't I? And his friends were just fighting back."

"Whether or not he was about to draw just now," Roscoe said, "I _gurantee_ you he was _not_ an innocent man. Man gave me the heebie jeebies. All them questions 'bout our women."

More gunshots sounded outside the bar. They rushed to the front windows and peered through the boards. Carol could make out Abraham's broad shoulders and the red hair just above his neck. His heavy bootsteps clamored toward the door, which was suddenly kicked in. Abraham abruptly entered, sweeping left and then right with his rifle, but finding only the faces of the fellow members of his mission. "All clear!" he called back to Omar, who entered.

"What the hell happened here?" Omar asked.

"That fat guy tried to get a drop on us," Roscoe said. "Wanted to rob our camp and rape our women."

Carol didn't know if any of that was true, but Roscoe said it with firm assurance. He wanted to believe it as much as she did. So did Zach, apparently, because he said, "Carol stopped him in time. Then the other two opened fire on us, and Roscoe and I took care of them."

"What was going on out there?" Roscoe nodded toward the door.

"Just a couple of walkers," Omar said. He looked curiosity at the bodies on the floor. His eyes fell on the gun still in Tony's waistband, but he said nothing about its positioning. "Bait shop was cleaned out of anything useful, except a few things in the back – a box of beef jerky, a case of bottled water, and two five-gallon cans of gas."

"Well, we got booze," said Zach, shouldering his rifle. He stepped over one of the bodies and grabbed the box of alcohol off the bar. "Ten percent finders' fee, right? That's in the Constitution."

"Yes, sir," Roscoe replied. "For cigarettes, booze, and candy. Not food though."

"Speaking of food," Omar said as he left the bodies casually behind and walked out the front door. "I think it's time for dinner."


	99. Expanding the Camp

On the drive home, Carol worked to block the shooting from her mind. Maybe she'd acted too quickly, but Roscoe was right. There was nothing innocent about that man. He'd set off a hundred red flags in her mind. Tony and his crew would have been trouble, if not today, then someday down the road.

Carol pushed the guilt into a corner of her gut. It left only an unpleasant, lingering burn by the time they arrived home. The breaks squealed when Roscoe pulled to a stop. Rick drew up on foot as Carol jumped from the big rig to the ground below. "Good work!" he exclaimed.

Carol left the truck to the men, got into a golf cart, and made her way quickly to her cabin under the glow of the half moon. Daryl was on the porch smoking, as if he'd been unable to sleep. When he caught sight of her, he ground his cigarette beneath his heel and clamored down the stairs. She'd been gone less than twenty-four hours, but he hugged her like it had been a week.

[*]

They tiptoed quietly to their bedroom past Noah, who was sleeping on their couch at night until the lower cabins could be secured and resettled.

Daryl wanted sex – that kind of desperate, hungry sex that rises on the wave of relief at seeing the one you love alive. But Carol seemed weary. She propped her AR-15 in the corner, rubbed her eyes, stripped down to her undershirt and panties, and crawled into bed before turning her back toward the spot where he usually slept.

Daryl dropped his pants, yanked off his muscle shirt, and slipped in next to her wearing only his boxers. He kissed the top of her head and said, "Glad yer home safe."

"Me too," she murmured. "Night, Daryl."

"Nite." Because she seemed so strangely distant, he added, quietly, "Love ya."

To his relief, she replied, "I love you, too."

And then it grew quiet, except for the musical sawing sound of crickets outside the open window, the distant croak of the toads, and the occasional pop of a rifle from the foot patrol. Daryl drifted off to sleep and awoke three hours later to the sound of Carol's crying.

He eased up to her in bed and slung an arm around her waist. "Shhh…." he whispered. She stopped, but then she started again, and this time, he wasn't so sure she was asleep. "'S wrong?"

"Nothing. Go back to sleep."

"Bullshit. Ain't nothin'."

She wiped at her eyes and then rolled over into his embrace. He lay his fingertips gently against her hair where it curled up from her neck. Eventually, she told him what had happened in that bar. "I shot a man who wasn't even trying to shoot me," she concluded at last. "Because I was afraid. Because he made me nervous."

"Made ya nervous for a reason. Listened to yer gut. Back alive. 'S all I care 'bout." He pressed her head against his bare chest and felt her warm breath and the dampness of her cheeks. "Go back to sleep. Need yer rest."

Eventually, she did.

[*]

Daryl awoke groggily when Sophia knocked on the bedroom door to tell him Halley was waiting for him on the porch to go hunting.

"Coffee's on the counter," she said when he came out of the room, his crossbow on his back.

"Thanks. Be nice to yer mama this mornin'. Had a rough night."

"She got a lot of stuff on that run, didn't she?" As if to emphasize Sophia's point, the sound of hammering and sawing drifted through the open windows, and the solar fan that rested in the living room directly in front of the fireplace whirred its blades. When Daryl looked at it, Sophia said, "Uncle Roscoe brought that over this morning. It works great. He said to put it in a place with a clear view of the sun to recharge it."

The sheets on the sofa were folded neatly at the foot, with the pillow resting on top. "Noah up already?"

"He's working on the fence."

Noah seemed like a good kid – polite, well mannered, but Daryl wasn't thrilled about having a teenage boy on his couch. Of course, Sophia was much too young for Noah to take an interest in. Noah was closer to Beth's age. Still, Daryl always felt cautious about any young man being around his maturing daughter, especially one he didn't know well. Was this how all fathers felt, all the time? It could give a man a damn ulcer.

[*]

After hunting, Daryl walked past the playground, where kids whose names he still didn't know were playing, past the family tents in the grass field at the edge of the playground, to the solar bay, where Roscoe was re-charging generators. "Mornin'," he muttered.

"And a good one, too!" Roscoe said cheerfully. "Got a crap ton of new panels to work with."

"Mhmhm." Daryl looked over the panels as if he was interested, but he hadn't stopped by to talk about solar power. "Hey uh…what happened in that bar on yer run?"

Roscoe dropped the wires he'd been tinkering with and stood straight. He tipped his cowboy hat down to block the sun, or to hide his eyes – Daryl wasn't sure which. "Why do you ask?"

"Carol seems pretty upset."

Now Roscoe met his eyes. "Look, that man was bad news. She knew it. I knew it. Zach knew it. Maybe she didn't have a reason to kill him _when_ she killed him…but he'd have _given_ one of us a good reason sooner or later. I'm damn sure of it. It ain't easy making split second choices in this world. The only one I still feel bad about was that boy…he was about Zach's age. I think he might of just been caught up with a bad crowd, but that's the risk you take. Ain't like Zach had a choice but to shoot him once the guns came out."

Daryl glanced toward the treehouse, where Zach was in the watchtower. Beth was with him, and their voiced filtered on the mountain air – a murmur of argument, without distinguishable words. Roscoe followed his gaze. "Zach thinks she's been flirting with Noah while he was gone. People get shot, but it's our day-to-day troubles that still plague us most."

Daryl turned his eyes away from the treehouse and back to Roscoe. "Just three of 'em? No sign of anyone else? A camp?"

"Omar and Abraham followed their tracks for a while, but didn't see any sign of a camp or more people. Those men pulled up to town in a pick-up. We got some food and ammo out of it. Left the sleeping bags. I think they were on their own. Nomads."

Daryl left Roscoe to his recharging and found Carol in the big kitchen of the Big Cabin, wiping down her chopping surfaces. "What did you bring me from the forest?" she asked, and he was relieved to hear her sound less sad than she had last night.

"Live rabbit. Halley took it to the farm."

"Well, we've got a dozen fresh eggs from those chickens we were given, but that's not quite enough to make an omlet for almost sixty people. I guess I could make a scramble if I pad it with lots of vegetables and Spam - "

"- The O'Connor siblings caught a pig yesterday. 'S hangin' in the smoke house. We ain't touched it yet."

"Well then I better get out my barbecue sauces." Her eyes twinkled the way they always did when she was about to throw some sexual innuendo his way. "You like it sweet or hot?"

He smiled and ducked his head. "Little of both." Then he walked a bit closer, tugged at her apron until she stepped up to him, and kissed her. He was dirty from the forest and her white apron got a little black when he pulled her deeper into the kiss.

"I don't think that's sanitary, Mrs. Dixon," Patrick interrupted them. He set a carton of fresh vegetables down on the counter top. Carol had probably sent him to the root cellar to get them. "You told me we have to be very careful about sanitation in the kitchen."

Daryl grunted but Carol smiled. "We do," she agreed. "So get washed up. We'll be barbecuing pork today."

[*]

Carol received profuse praises for her cooking that evening from people whose names she'd just finished learning. While some cleaned up and others continued the work on the fence, a few lingered in the park. Carol relaxed with a glass of iced tea and watched the kids play. Roscoe was sitting on the wooden balance beam and strumming his guitar while Beth sat beside him and sang along. Meanwhile, Zach was flirting with Halley to get back at Beth for flirting with Noah. Eugene was annoying Roy and Janet with trivial information, while Darlene was babying T-Dog for his still-healing shoulder wound.

Boone's daughter Samantha eased down beside Carol on the picnic bench, baby Pioneer in her arms. Carol's eyes kept drifting to the adorable baby, with its big brown eyes and lightly tan skin, and eventually she asked to hold the tyke. It had been a long time since she cradled and infant, and there was a strange comfort in holding that squirmy new life. She thought of what Daryl had suggested, about ditching the condoms and just leaving things to chance, and found herself wavering slightly in her resolve to always be careful.

When she finally relinquished the child to its mother again, laughter drifted from the playground and tinkled like a wind chime in the breeze, and Carol thought maybe she was done trying to prove herself and her strength. From now on, she would leave the supply runs to others, to those who could walk away from any necessary carnage without the same weight of guilt. There was an entire world worth protecting and loving and feeding right here at home.

[*]

Because of Sasha's patience, she and Abraham began to become friends, though his memory had not yet returned, and he still spoke often of the family he could not quite believe was dead. He was restored to his position of Captain and called back out to the field by General Boone. Sasha hoped he would remember his love for her by the time he returned for his week-long furlough.

The fence and front gate were completed and encompassed several more cabins. The cabins were cleaned and aired out and the tanks filled with water from the electric pumps, and so the Council gathered to assign the newcomers places to live.

Noah was given a room in the Hernandez family cabin, where Juan, a master carpenter, his wife Christina, and his children Santiago and Carlos would live. Juan had already begun to construct an outdoor gazebo for communal dining.

Karen was to move into the Boone family cabin and into a bedroom General Boone would share with her when he was on furlough. Halley and Tara gave up the master bedroom in their cabin so that Maggie and Glenn would have more room when the baby came. Ivy agreed Omar could stay with her in her bedroom when he was on furlough.

The O'Connor siblings - Mike, who was nineteen, Landon, who was seventeen, and Olivia, who was almost fifteen - were kept together in a cabin with Eugene and Stephen, which also housed the science lab.

Roy, Janet, and their adopted children were given their own cabin, as were Joe and Linda and their children Ryan and Faith. Austin, Deborah and their children Dallas, Houston, and Grace shared the final cabin. Austin, who had once owned an orchard, was planning to plant fruit trees.

That left Cabins 14 and 15 empty. "I was thinking we should shut up Cabin 15 for now," Carol said at the Council Meeting, "and use it if and when we have to expand. Cabin 14 is a small one, with only two bedrooms and no study or garage. I thought maybe we could use it as a schoolhouse and a Town Hall."

The Council discussed schooling for the children and decided on a formal school schedule that allowed the kids to be grouped loosely by age. As Maggie was closing the notebook, she bent over suddenly. The metal spiral flashed in the sunlight streaming from the study's window as the notebook tumbled to the floor. She groaned.

"Contraction?" Carol asked.

"Yeah, they're much stronger all of the sudden."

"Stronger?" Darlene asked with alarm. "How long have you been having 'em?"

"For a couple of hours," Maggie answered calmly. "I wanted to get through this meeting before I worried about it."

Carol shook her head and reached out a hand to help Maggie out of her chair. "Come on. We're getting you to Dr. S."


	100. Clock's 'a Tickin'

Maggie had a normal delivery and gave birth to a healthy baby girl they named Gi Judith, in honor of Glenn's mother and Maggie's favorite aunt, who had died when she was just a girl. Gi fortunately took to the breast relatively easily, which would mean the formula they'd stockpiled could go to the stubborn Pioneer Boone, who had refused to nurse from his mother's breast. Pioneer was also colicky, a fact Karen complained about regularly and privately to Carol after moving into the Boone family cabin.

"G?" Daryl asked Carol privately one night in bed, as they lay side by side with their cheeks on their pillows. "Hell kind of name is _G_?"

"It's Korean and means brave one, which we should hope this little girl turns out to be."

"G. Just a damn letter," he muttered.

"It's two letters. It's spelled G-I." Carol looked at him with a teasing smile. "Hey, it's better than Baby Boy, isn't it?"

He flushed. "Stop." She kissed his cheek affectionately, which soothed his ruffled feathers. He appeared reflective, and she was about to ask what he was thinking when he said, "Babies is damn cute. Dontchya think?" He raised his eyes to hers and she knew what he was subtly saying – that it would be nice to have one of their own.

Men weren't supposed to be the ones pushing for babies, especially not men like Daryl. Then again, maybe Daryl was just the man to be pushing for one. Carol supposed that in the culture in which he grew up, the ability to procreate was a mark of manhood. And then there was the fact that he hadn't had a loving family of his own. He wanted to build one here in this new world. They already _had_ built it, Carol believed, but a child of his own might be a real sign of starting over for him, of burying the dark past that haunted him.

"Yeah," Carol agreed, "they're cute. I'm sure Glenn will let you change her diapers."

[*]

The early July heat was sweltering at the height of the afternoon, and Daryl had come in to lounge before the fan. Carol eased down on the couch next to him. "The election results are in."

The cabin fiefdom had originally planned to have elections in the summer, but the combined council complicated matter. It had been decided that only the five cabin representatives would be up for replacement, and that only the original cabin fiefdom could vote. From this point forward, however, annual elections would be held once a year in May for the entire Council and everyone in the camp would vote on all nine slots.

"And?" he asked.

"Well...Sasha and I got re-elected. But you and Maggie and Darlene didn't."

Daryl used his bare foot to drag the fan a little closer by its stand. "Congrats."

"You don't seem too upset."

Daryl shrugged. "Should be spendin' more time huntin' and goin' on supply runs anyhow. "

She chuckled. "You're taking it more gracefully than Maggie did. She's a little miffed because Glenn replaced her. She thinks it's sexist, that people see a woman with a baby as not being Council material, but they don't see a man with a baby that way."

"Who else got elected?"

"Rick."

"Ain't surprised." He put his foot close to the fan and leaned it in and out to make a noise.

"And _Zach_. No one was more surprised by that than himself. But Rick thinks all the younger ones voted for him - Patrick, Sophia, Carl. Of course Beth."

"Zach's a real man now. Shoots good. Has good ideas," Daryl said.

"And he's young. It's probably good to have someone of the younger generation on the Council. He may have a different perspective."

Daryl turned his eyes from the fan to hers. "Kids are the future."

She gave him a thin smile and then kissed him gently. "I need to get to the Council meeting. Are you going back out in the forest later?"

He nodded. "Be gone 'til dinner."

[*]

In late July, King Merle stopped by for a surprise visit to see "how the hell my favorite fiefdom is getting along."

"Why are we yer favorite?" Daryl asked him.

"Because you produce the largest tithe of meat, and you smoke it so damn good." Merle was still calling it a tithe, even though he took only five percent now. Daryl thought he liked the feudal sound of the term.

That night, when the heat had subsided and the crickets had come out to sing, Merle shared half a bottle of Blanton's with Daryl on the back porch. They smoked a couple of cigars and talked in a way they'd never talked before – more like friendly acquaintances who sort of liked each other than brothers who both loved and hated each other.

"Know why I brought these cigars?" Merle asked.

"'Cause ya's out of cigarettes?"

"Nah, we're celebrating." Merle blew two smoke rings.

Daryl tried but only managed one. "Celebratin' what?"

"The coming prince."

Daryl coughed. "Hell's that mean?"

"I knocked Esther up damn good. She's six weeks pregnant now."

"Congratulations." Daryl felt a pang of jealousy. Carol had just finished a period yesterday, so that meant she could still possibly get pregnant. But he hadn't brought up the topic of shucking the condoms again. She just didn't seem to want it the way he did, and he couldn't blame her, not with the risks involved. "Could be a prin ** _cess_**."

"Dixon men always produce boys." Merle took a drag from his cigar and said, "I think my army has just about eliminated the Pillagers. Haven't seen one in weeks. And we've secured the trade routes. I'm leaving y'all a map. The Village is your best bet for a trading partner. They mostly want batteries and feminine products. And Janice always wants liquor and chocolate for her services of course."

"Ain't no one needs Janice's services here," Daryl said.

Merle laughed. "Speak for yourself, brother. Not everyone's got a woman. And sooner or later these older teenage boys are going to want to pop their cherries. Looks like you got at least four running 'round here. Ain't that many teenage girls, unless you want 'em all comin' after yours."

"Shut it," Daryl growled, which only made Merle laugh.

Merle was right, though. There were too damn many boys. Noah, Mike, and Landon were too old for Sophia and wouldn't likely think of coming near her until she was in her late teens and they were in their early twenties. But Patrick, Carter, and Carl were all possible boyfriend material sometime in the next two years. And then there was Houston, who was only eleven now, but when he was fourteen Sophia would be a ripe seventeen, and Daryl remembered being fourteen and thinking about sex all the ever-loving time.

Merle chuckled and blew out another ring of smoke. "Seriously, man. You've got trouble brewing. In this camp, you've only got three unmarried girls between the age of twelve and eighteen. And one of 'em's your daughter."

"Shut it!" Daryl wondered if General Boone had these same distressing thoughts about his daughter Joy, who was about ten months younger than Sophia. He supposed dads were instinctively protective of their daughters in any world, but in such a small world as this, where they were outnumbered by boys on every hand… "Need more bourbon." He shoved his glass over to Merle again.

Merle poured him another ounce and said, "Good thing you ain't driving home, brother." Merle was, though. Well, he was going to drive an ATV the four miles down the windy dirt road to Cabin 14, which was now, in addition to being the Town Hall and the schoolhouse, the guest house. The two small bedrooms had been prepared for anyone who might stop overnight in the future –the occasional trader from another fiefdom, a homeless solider on furlough looking for a warm bed on a rainy night, or the King himself.

Maybe it was good thing Merle had his own court in another state at the Parthenon. Daryl didn't think they were meant to live too closely together anymore, but still, it was good to know he was alive out there somewhere and that he was doing well for himself. "'S nice to see ya, Merle."

"Yeah," Merle agreed, holding up his glass to toast Daryl. "We should do this more often."

Daryl clinked Merle's glass, knowing damn well they wouldn't do it more often.

[*]

Carol awoke to the feel of Daryl's hand cupping her breast. Star light drew a scattered pattern on the single white sheet she'd gone to sleep beneath. It was a warm night, so she'd crawled into bed naked.

"Mhmmm…" he murmured and nipped her ear. The smell of alcohol assaulted her nostrils as Daryl's slurred, "Wanna make a baby with ya, my beautiful bride." He nipped at her neck and squeezed her breast lightly. "Wanna fill ya with my seed."

She took hold of his hand and removed it from her breast. Carol rolled over on her side and put a hand on his cheek. In the faint light, his eyes glistened and twinkled. "You're very drunk, sweetheart."

"I am?" he asked, a little loudly, and with a look of surprise.

"Very."

"Sorry." His s's were coming out as shhhh's.

Her lips curved in an indulgent, affectionate smile. "I kind of expected it when Merle stopped by with that bottle of bourbon. But no sex tonight, Pookie." She kissed his nose. "Not in your current state."

"Yes, ma'am," he said contritely. He closed his eyes. Then he closed them tighter, as if fighting off the spinning room. Carol chuckled, turned over, and went back to sleep.

She dreamed of babies.

[*]

 _C_ arol walked inside the Town Hall / school house, where she'd come to fetch the inventory file to make some updates before the Council meeting. The living room walls were covered with maps, charts, and the art work of children. The couch, love seat, and two armchairs had been arranged like two rows of desks to face a free standing white board before the fireplace. Some basic algebra formulas were scribbled in blue ink over it. Clipboards were stacked neatly on the two end tables breaking up the furniture.

Carol was surprised to find two babies on a soft foam ABC play mat on the floor between the furniture and the white board. She stopped and opened her mouth in a happy, playful gasp the way adults sometimes do when a wave of cuteness overwhelms them. Pioneer was getting "tummy time." He strained to raise his little head to look up at her and gurgled and squealed. He was a happy baby when he wasn't crying. Next to him tiny little Gi lay on her back, her hair as black as Pioneer's but much thinner, her skin a beautiful milky brown shade, and her big, surprisingly light brown eyes opened wide. Carol had a sudden flashback to when Sophia was that small and she would sit and count her fingers and toes over and over, as if to prove that the one ray of light in her dark life was real.

Glenn was lying on the floor next to the babies and making faces at both, while Andre was sitting on the floor and trying to give Gi a stuffed bunny. A solar fan whirred softly on them all. It had gotten even hotter now that it was August.

"What are they doing here?" Carol asked.

"Seemed a good place to hang out. Samantha is napping and Maggie and Michonne are decorating the alcove in our bedroom to make a nicer nursery," Glenn replied, "so somehow I got stuck babysitting."

"You can't babysit your own child," Carol informed him.

"Well, two of them aren't mine."

"Take the bunny!" Andre insisted, and pushed it toward Gi, whose little hand slid over its fur as she moved her arms and legs like a jelly fish. "Gigi doesn't like the bunny," Andre said in a tone of stern disappointment. Everyone seemed to have his or her own name for the new baby. Glenn called her peanut, Maggie called her pumpkin, Daryl called her Little Ass Kicker, and only Carol seemed to call her by her name.

"Gi can't grab the bunny, sweetie," Carol told Andre, still a bit surprised by how much Andre was talking these days. He'd been such a quiet observer when he first arrived. "She's too little to grab things yet."

Anthony walked into the cabin and sat down on the couch before the play mat. His son raised his head and cooed upon seeing him. Then Pioneer began to wobble and roll on his stomach as though showing off for his father, and he actually rolled himself over.

"Whoa!" Glenn said. "Isn't that a little young for that? My book said they roll over at five or six months."

"Every child is different," Anthony replied. "And mine's a genius. And, well...he's almost five months. He's a little small for his age."

Glenn moved Gi over a bit. "Well we don't want him rolling over on my peanut."

"Not for another eighteen years anyway," Anthony replied with a smile.

Glenn's head snapped up. "What?"

"Should we go ahead and arrange the marriage now?"

"What?" Glenn asked again.

"Between Pioneer and Gi."

Glenn sat up and blinked. "Are you serious?"

"No, I'm not serious! Although…" Anthony shrugged. "It's a new, small world. Dating and romance and the like aren't going to be quite the same."

"No offense, but, I think Gi needs to keep her options open. You never know who else might have a baby sometime in the next year or two."

Glenn's words struck Carol like a gong. Why did everyone seem to be conspiring to make her think of babies lately?

"You think Gi's going to want a younger man?" Anthony asked.

"Well, if she wants an older one," Glenn replied, "there's always Andre."

"I'm marrying my mom when I grow up," Andre announced. The men seemed surprised to find he'd been following the conversation, and Carol chuckled. She couldn't help but wondered what it might be like to have an innocent little boy who thought you were his world. A pang of wanting swelled up within her, and then it was just as quickly drowned by a wave of worry.

Before the Council Meeting started, Michonne and Maggie came to sweep up Andrew and Gi, but Pioneer slept through the whole thing in his father's arms.

Glenn reported that the fence was catching up four or five walkers a day and suggested rotating two cleaning teams so people didn't forget how to kill. Various jobs were assigned and reassigned.

Stephen reported on his science research: "Both the baby that didn't turn and General Boone's son Jack had AB negative blood type. I can't imagine that means anything, but it's the rarest blood type, found in only one percent of people, so it's an interesting coincidence at the very least. I'd like to go out with one of the cleaning teams a few mornings this week and take blood samples from all the walkers trapped on the fence. And I'd like to trap a walker and study it."

Disgusted noises went up around the Council.

"We're not keeping a walker in our camp," Glenn said.

"I was talking to Michonne about the idea at dinner yesterday," Stephen replied. "She suggested we cut off its arms so it can't grasp and break it's jaw so it can't bite."

"Creepy as fuck," Zach muttered.

"Stephen is a bit of a mad scientist," Anthony said with a smirk.

"Look, if we're ever going to learn anything about this disease," Stephen said, "we have to study it. I'll keep it in one of the cabins outside the camp when I'm not using it."

Rick sighed. "All in favor?"

The motion was approved, and Carol said she'd have Daryl "disarm" one of his trapped ones. He got about one every other day in his walker traps these days.

Janet, who had taken over Maggie's note-taking duties now that the new mother was off the Council, was writing down everything.

"Tara approached me," Sasha said. "She'd like a cabin reassignment. Apparently, she and Halley broke up."

"What?" Zach asked.

"That didn't last long," Glenn observed.

"Why?" Zach wanted to know.

Sasha shrugged. "She didn't really want to talk about it. But she'd like to move into the study in the big cabin, if that's okay."

"The study's free now," Rick said. "But that cabin is pretty full. Go ahead and put her there, but...this could get really inconvenient if people keep breaking up."

"Well, Maggie and I will stick together then," Glenn told him. "So as not to inconvenience anyone."

"Let's talk about our next supply run," Roy said. "I've been looking at phone books and maps, and I've found a drug store that's not a part of a strip mall or on a main street, so it might not have been hit. The Village wants batteries, medicines, and feminine products more than anything else. It would be good for trade. And we could always use more, too."

Zach volunteered to be on the run, and Rosita was assigned to join him, as well as Darlene, for picking any locks. Glenn suggested Halley also join the team. "She's used to being out of the gates to hunt and she's good with that bow. We have Mike, Landon, and Olivia to help hunt now."

"I don't know," Zach said. "Not sure Beth's going to want me to go overnight someplace with Halley."

"Your wife's jealous of a lesbian?" Anthony asked.

"Halley's not...she swings both ways," Zach told him. "But never mind. Assign her. You're right. She'd be good. And she's young and needs the practice. You know, people are going to get old and we'll need younger supply runners eventually."

Carol hated being reminded how old she was. Too old to be risking pregnancy. Too old for her biological clock to have begun ticking slowly, annoyingly to life again.


	101. A Big Decision

After the supply run team pulled out of the front gate in a caravan of two large pick-ups, Daryl and Michonne headed off to disarm a trapped walker. Daryl didn't think they were going to find a cure for this disease, not with so few resources and so few minds working on it, but he kept his opinion to himself. When they got to his traps, there was a walker in one, and a chewed upon beaver in another. "Damn," he muttered. "Wanted to eat me some beaver."

Michonne snorted. "Well, then you should talk to Carol about that."

Daryl flushed. He stepped back as Michonne pulled out her katana and shivered at the sound it made as it came out of the sheath, like a fork scrapping a plate. A little blood splattered on Michonne's white shirt as she dispensed with first one arm and then the other. Then she cut off the creature's lower jaw, too. "Got the chain?"

"Mhmhm." Daryl pulled it out of his backpack.

As they walked back toward camp, Michonne tugging the armless walker by the chain, she said, "It's strange that it's not trying to eat me."

"It cain't," he said. "Ya cut off it's damn jaw."

"I know it _can't_ ," she said, "but it's not even _trying_. It was trying before I cut off its arms and jaw, and now it's not. It's coming along almost like a docile pet."

"Well I'm sure Stephen'll have a theory 'bout that."

Stephen did have a theory when they handed over the walker to him in his garage science lab - something to do with muscle feedback. He said the walker's brain somehow instinctively realized its jaws and arms weren't working so it stopped trying to eat them to conserve energy.

"Don't make no damn sense," Daryl said. "Animals don't suddenly become tame 'cause ya cut shit off 'em."

"Well what's _your_ theory?"

"The world's a damn strange place."

"Good theory," Stephen replied. "Well, it'll be interesting to see how long it takes this walker to starve to death."

[*]

Carol continued to oscillate between wanting to try for a baby and not wanting to try, but she didn't tell Daryl of this internal struggle because she didn't want to get his hopes up. He hadn't mentioned wanting to make a baby since that one drunken night, and Carol assumed he'd just suppressed his desire because he knew pregnancy was a potential risk to her.

She was stepping out of the Town Hall when the supply team was nearing the gate, so she walked down past the last, empty, fenced-in cabin and unlocked it for them. Both pick-ups rolled in, their beds full of cardboard boxes and stuffed plastic bags. Zach drove the first one, with Halley riding shotgun and laughing and talking with him.

Rosita climbed down from the driver's side of the second pick-up, and Darlene sashayed out from the passenger's side. "The store was pretty well looted," Rosita said, "but it had this big, untouched storage closet with extra inventory. Darlene picked that lock right open."

"And it was tampon city," Darlene finished for her. "We also got pads, batteries, medicines, diapers, a case of Cheerios, two boxes of Simlac, and bottled water. And here's the best part - three cases of Yellow Tail wine – one of Chardonnay, and two of Merlot."

"No beer?" Daryl asked, strolling up to the group. He'd been helping Roscoe to replace a non-functioning panel in the new, second solar bay not far away. His cousin had needed someone to do the heavy lifting.

"Sorry, man," Zach told him. "But we did good. You should have seen Halley take out two walkers with one arrow!"

"Ain't even possible," Daryl told him.

"Well, they were kind of bunched up," Halley admitted. "And Rosita had to finish off the second one."

"But the arrow went all the way through the first and stunned the second." Zach shook his head and smiled at Halley. "She's something else."

"Hmmm…" Daryl murmured. "So's _Beth_. Yer wife."

"Yeah. Beth's great," Zach agreed. "I'm gonna go get Carl and Patrick and Carter to help unload this stuff."

[*]

"I don't know if that marriage is going to last," Carol told Daryl over tea that night, as they sat by the unlit fire with an evening summer breeze faintly rustling the curtains of the open windows. Yesterday, Carol had been reminded of just how young Beth was when she'd seen her talking and laughing with Noah like a couple of teenage kids. Which, of course, they _were_.

"But they's _married_ now," Daryl said.

"Married people divorce."

Daryl chewed on his thumbnail.

"Not _us_ ," she clarified. "But _other_ people."

"Ain't no one here you could leave me 'fore anyhow," he said.

"Well, there's Greg."

"I got one arm on him."

Carol chuckled. "Trust me, that's not your only advantage over him." She sipped her coffee and then teased, "There's Eugene." That got such a look out of Daryl that she burst out laughing. "You don't feel at all threatened by Eugene? I mean that mullet is kind of sexy. And all the _factoids_ he can recite!"

"Stop."

"There's also Stephen."

Daryl frowned at that, like he couldn't think or a reason to rule Stephen out right away.

"He's a councilman," she said, " _scientist_ …"

"Keeper of a pet walker."

Carol chuckled. "I suspect he's gay anyway."

"Ain't gay," Daryl said. "He's just brainy."

"What makes you think he's not gay?"

"Seen 'em lookin'."

"At whom?" Carol wanted to know. "Or what?"

"Maggie's tits. Michonne's legs. Rosita's ass, Sasha's – "

"- Wait a minute!" she interrupted. "Now why did you notice him looking at all these things? What were _you_ looking at?"

"Lookin' at him!"

"Why?"

"I just notice things!" he said defensively. "I'm _observant_."

"Then you'd think you'd observe that I was just teasing you."

He growled in that way that made him sound like a ruffled puppy. Her smile curved over the rim of the cup. "So," she said, "you hunt with Halley. Give me the juicy gossip. Why did she and Tara break up?"

"No damn idea. We ain't been huntin' since they broke up 'cause she went on that supply run. And it ain't like we talk 'bout romance when we do."

"I don't believe you. She had to have said something _leading up_ to it. Maybe you're not as observant as you think you are."

"I'm observant!"

"So what did you observe?" Carol asked.

"Observed Halley's only 'bout twenty percent gay. Probably Tara wants a woman that's at least fifty percent gay. Fine for a while, better than nothin'. Didn't work out."

"So _Tara_ was the one who did the breaking up?"

Daryl shrugged. "That was my impression."

"Interesting. Well, now that Mike and Landon know Halley's single, they're both going to start chasing her. Which might be good, because otherwise she'd be flirting more with Zach. Now she can flirt with them."

The front door opened and Sophia and Mika came in. They'd been down in the park for an all-ages-under-twenty kickball game Zach had organized and refereed, and it looked like Patrick had walked them home.

"Can Patrick come in for a little?" Sophia asked. "We want to play some chess."

"'S late," Daryl said.

"Sure," Carol said. "Patrick is welcome to stay for an hour."

Patrick grinned and headed for the kitchen table while Sophia got the chess set and Carol tried not to laugh at Daryl's sour expression.

[*]

Abraham's memory had not yet returned, but he'd recently completely his week-long furlough in the cabin fiefdom. During that time, he'd found his way into Sasha's bed, a fact that was currently being discussed by the women who were playing cards at Carol's kitchen table. Daryl had gone with Sophia and Mika to the park for the big after-dinner kids' kickball game that was fast becoming a regular past time in the camp. This meant the ladies had the cabin to themselves. They had already shared one of the bottles of Yellow Tail from the drug store and a second was on deck to be opened.

"Was it different?" Darlene wanted to know. "Having sex with him when he doesn't remember ever having sex with you?"

"It was like doing it for the first time again," Sasha said.

Rosita, surprisingly, did not flinch at this talk of sex with her ex-boyfriend. Carol thought she resented Abraham's relationship with Sasha less now that it had re-started with a clean slate. Abraham wasn't moving on from Rosita anymore. He was moving on from his late wife. "He seems different," Rosita said as she dealt the cards.

"He's just as wry as he ever was," Sasha replied, "and just as _determined_. But he's calmer, in a way. Less inclined to anger and risky behavior."

"Maybe it's because some of those memories that led to his PTSD are gone," Rosita suggested. "I think that shit with his family really screwed him up."

"Are you ever going to tell him what really happened to his family?" Michonne asked.

Sasha picked a card and then discarded. "I'll let General Boone's story stand. Abraham doesn't know he talked to me about his family, so he hasn't asked about it, so I'm not really lying about it. I'm just not bringing it up. If he remembers, he remembers, and I'll help him through it then."

Carol let slip a doubtful noise. She didn't think she could keep a major secret from Daryl, or that it was healthy for a relationship to do so. Sasha looked at her curiously. "You think it's a bad idea?"

Carol was saved from having to answer when the front door opened and Maggie popped her head in. "Knock, knock. Room for one more?"

There was a chorus of pleased sounds from the women at the table and Carol pulled up a chair for her. "I just fed Gi so I have about two hours," Maggie said as she sat down.

"We're honored you chose us over a much-needed nap," Carol replied.

"I never could _nap_. It wasn't a problem before, but now it's a curse." Maggie took the hand she'd just been dealt. "So what are we gossiping about?"

"Abraham and Sasha finally had sex," Karen filled her in. "And it was like the first time all over again."

Maggie picked, played, and discarded. "In a way, you're lucky," she told Sasha. "How many people get to fall in love twice with the same guy?"

Carol smiled. Sometimes she thought she fell in love with Daryl twice in the _same day_.

"So, while we're on the subject of men and sex…." Michonne raised an eyebrow and looked at Karen. "How are things with _the General_?"

"It's good," Karen said. "When he's home. It's very good, but I think he thinks we're married now."

"Well, let's be honest, honey," Darlene told her. "You _are_. You moved into his family's cabin. How much more married can you get?"

"It was never explicitly _stated_ , though."

"I think everyone who lives together in this world is pretty much common law married," Carol said.

"Roscoe and I are _not_ married," Rosita insisted.

"So you're still keeping your options open?" Michonne asked.

"Not really, but I have to keep Roscoe on his toes. He's a pursuer. A wooer. If it was too easy, if he was too certain of me, he'd get bored."

Darlene laughed. "You may be right about that."

"I love Roscoe," Rosita said. "He's a good catch. Sings, plays the guitar, writes me love songs, attentive in bed…And the best thing about him? He had a vasectomy in the old world. That is _gold_. No worries at all."

"I wish Rick had a vasectomy," Michonne said wistfully.

"Daryl wants a baby," Carol confessed suddenly. She hadn't meant to do it, but it was as if the hopes and worries and fears and concerns that had been subtly plaguing her for days had just exploded through the carpet she'd been sweeping them beneath.

Everyone lowered their cards slowly.

" _Daryl_ wants a baby?" Maggie said doubtfully.

Carol nodded. "I think...you know...he wants to give a child the home he never had."

"A home with walkers roaming around and possum for dinner?" Karen asked with a puzzled look on her face.

"A home with love," Carol said.

"And what do _you_ want?" Michonne asked.

"I told him we need to keep using condoms. It's risky at my age, for both me and the baby. And we know what happened to Lori. But the truth is…maybe a big part of me wants a baby too."

"Yeah?" Darlene asked. "So what _else_ is stopping you from trying, then? Besides the risk? Because Samantha and Maggie both had healthy pregnancies and no-problem deliveries. And I've seen you go on dangerous supply runs and get _shot_ , so I don't think the risk is really your primary concern."

Leave it to Darlene to cut through the dross with her frankness. "Honestly? I think maybe I'm afraid if we stop using condoms," Carol admitted, "I'll start wanting a baby even more, and then I _won't_ get pregnant, and it will be really disappointing." She sighed and rearranged her hand. "And I'm afraid of disappointing Daryl. I mean, really, you're a nurse, Darlene. What are my odds?"

"Normally I'd say four percent, but the way you and Daryl probably go at it…I'd have to give you eight."

Michonne chuckled.

"You can't avoid pain, Carol," Darlene told her, "just by pretending not to want things."

"I don't see you rushing to get pregnant," Carol retorted.

"Well I've _never_ wanted children," Darlene replied. "That clock just never ticked for me. Kids are cute, but they're needy. And, frankly, my man is needy enough."

"I think the biological clock is a myth," Rosita said. "I've never wanted kids either."

"Well, you're still pretty young," Michonne told her. "I wouldn't assume that won't change. I never thought it would tick for me, and then when I hit thirty-one…tick…tick…tock. But Andre's enough. And now I have Carl, too."

"I was scared a lot during my pregnancy," Maggie admitted.

"You didn't show it," Sasha said.

"But I think…" Maggie smiled. "Maybe all that fear was worth it. I hold Gi at night until she falls asleep on my chest, all curled up and just breathing peacefully, and I think...humanity is going to keep on keeping on. We're going to make it. We really are."

[*]

The women had gone home. Sophia was taking a shower after that sweaty, muddy game of kickball. Daryl was reading to Mika in her bedroom.

Carol drew a line down the middle of a page in her notebook. In one column, she wrote _Pro_. In another, she wrote _Con_. Across from "Might be my last chance to get pregnant. Now or never," she wrote, "Pregnancy after forty has more risks to the baby."

Across from "Lori's death" she wrote "Maggie and Samantha's births."

Across from "Carrying on human civilization with another child" she wrote "less energy to protect/defend existing children."

Across from "Sharing something beautiful with Daryl" she wrote "Disappointing Daryl if I can't get pregnant"

Across from "Sex without condoms" she wrote...well. She wrote nothing. She couldn't think of a negative counterpoint to that.

Daryl came out of Mika's room, strolled to the bathroom, and knocked with one fist on the door. "Showerin' too long!" he shouted. "Need to conserve water."

The shower went off. Daryl walked to the kitchen, filled a glass of water, and sat down across the table from Carol.

He nodded to the notebook. "Recipes?"

"No. Something I want to talk to you about when the girls are both in bed."

Daryl looked suddenly nervous.

"It's nothing bad," she told him.

After Sophia was in bed, Daryl took a quick shower. Very quick. Two minutes. "That was fast," Carol said when he stepped out with a towel wrapped around his waist, his hair matted down like a disgruntled puppy's.

"Water ran out," he grumbled. "Still got soap on me."

"I'll go fill you a couple of buckets from the hand pump. We'll get Roscoe to run the electric pumps and refill the tanks in the morning." She did, and she also heated a kettle and mixed the cold and hot water together in the bathroom sink for him so he could sponge bathe the rest of the soap off.

"Gonna stand and watch?" he asked when she didn't leave the bathroom.

She smiled coquettishly. "Thought I might," she teased.

His eyes narrowed, and, for a moment, she couldn't tell if he was irritated or aroused, until he said, "Gonna help me wash some things?"

Carol turned and locked the bathroom door.

It started with a simple kiss, but it wasn't long before his towel came off. Then her jeans and underwear seemed to disappear in a series of tugs. They were both panting by the time he had her sitting on the vanity. His palms on her knees, he eased her legs open while he nipped at her neck.

"Shit," he muttered, his breath falling hot and fast in her ear. "Condoms all in the bedroom."

"Don't worry about it," she said.

"Yeah?"

"Daryl...I want you now."

"Oh, thank God," he moaned as he pulled her slightly off the vanity to push into her.

Later, when they'd cleaned up the new mess they'd made, and gotten dressed, he followed her out of the bathroom, asking, "What did ya want to talk to me about?"

"I wanted you to help me make a decision. But I think I've already made it."

"What decision?"

"I'll make us some tea. There's still some water in the kettle."

After they were settled on the couch with their tea cups, she told him she wanted to stop using condoms from here on out and that she was okay with the idea of getting pregnant. His face broke out into such an adorable, lopsided smile that her heart did a somersault in her chest. "I'm okay with the idea," she emphasized, " _if_ it happens. But you should probably brace yourself for the very strong possibility that it won't."

"A'ight."

"No, not all right. Do you understand how slim the odds are?"

"Mhmhm." He nodded. He put his tea cup down, took hers out of her hand, and drew her close.

"I'm afraid of not being able to give you what you want."

"Carol..." He put a hand on her cheek and looked her right in the eyes, which was not something he did often. He was not a man to make much eye contact, even with her. "Ya've already given me more than I deserve. If it happens, it happens. If it don't, it don't. Leave it to God."

"The God you don't believe in?" she asked.

"Just ain't got another word for it."

"Another word for what?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Whatever's the source of all these beautiful things I got in my life that I ain't deserved."

She drew herself a little closer on the couch and kissed him softly. "You're a good man, Daryl. You deserve happiness."

He pressed his forehead to hers. "Don't reckon it much matters if I do or I don't. I got it. Right here. With you."


	102. Trading with the Village

"Feel pregnant?" Daryl asked, putting a hand over Carol's stomach in bed.

"Pookie, it's been _one week_ since we stopped using condoms. _No_ , I don't feel pregnant. And I told you how unlikely it is."

"I know."

"Do you?"

"I know, But it's fun tryin' to make a baby, ain't it?" He gave her that grin she knew no one but her ever got to see – happy and impish and a little bit lecherous.

She slipped a hand inside his boxers. Daryl shut his eyes fast and hissed with pleasure. She loved the effect her sudden touch had on him. Her lips to his ear, she whispered, "Let's see how fun you can make it."

[*]

"Ya ain't been on the rag since July. Shouldn't ya take a test?" Daryl asked in a whisper as Carol was washing up the dishes from breakfast. Outside the window, the trees were just beginning to change color. She could make out a faint hint of yellow among the green. Sophia and Mika were playing a board game on the coffee table in the living room.

"I'm erratic anyway," she whispered back. "No sense bothering until I haven't had a period for ten weeks. I'm not going to waste E.P.T.s."

"A'ight." He kissed her cheek and went to pluck his crossbow from where it leaned against the wall. "Wanna hunt with yer old man today, Soph?"

"I'm working on the cars with Greg this morning, Dad. And then I have school in the afternoon. You know that. Can't you take Luke?"

"Took Luke yesterday afternoon. And Luke's got school this mornin'." The younger kids had school in the mornings, the older in the afternoons. "Wanna take you. Cain't ya skip one morning on the cars?"

"I like working on the cars better than hunting."

Daryl frowned. Sophia caught his expression. "But I could go with you for an hour, I guess." She stood up from the floor. "I'll get my rifle."

While Sophia was grabbing her gun, Daryl made a move on the Stratego board against Mika and then ruffled her hair. "Have a good day at school, Meek."

As Carol switched off the water, she thought that Daryl made a very good daddy. Then she thought how strange that idea would have seemed to her when he first rolled into the quarry camp over a year ago with that deer slung over Merle's motorcycle.

[*]

September had yielded a decent crop of vegetables in the farm land, and the root cellar was now full. The chickens produced about a dozen and a half eggs a week, and the litter of possum from the animal farm were grown enough to eat. Things were going well. What they lacked, and really wanted, was butter and milk.

So in October, when the pumpkins were about ready to pick, and a tapestry of gold, red, and yellow leaves quilted the trees, Daryl headed to the Village fiefdom to trade. "Take that test when I get back?" he asked after he kissed Carol goodbye.

"If my period doesn't start today," she whispered back.

The sun was rising like a red ball of fire as T-Dog and Roscoe loaded up the bed of the pick-up with the goods for trade. At the last minute, Greg asked to come along. Daryl wondered why he would want to be in on the trip, when he couldn't even hold a rifle with that missing arm. "Need something for the vehicles?" Daryl asked. "Tell me what, and I'll trade for it."

"No, we've got everything we need. I just want to get out and about."

"Suit yourself," Daryl told him, and let him climb in shotgun while Roscoe and T-Dog rode in the backseat.

As Daryl drove, he noticed Greg rifling one handed in his backpack, counting beer cans like money. There was a dark chocolate bar in there as well, and two packs of cigarettes, though Greg didn't smoke. It suddenly occurred to Daryl why he wanted to come along. "Ain't sure Janice takes beer," he said.

Greg flushed pink and quickly zipped up his back pack. "Please don't judge," he said. "Hell, look at me." He nodded to the stub where his lower left arm used to be, and then his leg, where the flesh beneath his pant leg had been deformed by the fire in the fight against the rebels. "No woman's ever going to want me. I'm useless."

"Ain't useless," Daryl said. "Sophia's been learnin' a lot from ya, 'bout the cars. And you blew up that tank in the invasion, even with one arm."

Greg looked out the window and watched the scenery pass. Daryl thought what Janice had said to him, about the men who came to see her, about how they were horny, but they were also lonely, and that, for a little while, they could forget all that loneliness. He felt a wave of gratitude for Carol, followed by a sort of hollow emptiness on Greg's behalf.

Daryl scratched the uneven stubble that lined his cheek. "Got a bottle of bourbon in my pack Merle gave me. Ya can have it. Just give me yer chocolate and cigarettes." Carol liked chocolate, though one bar was hardly worth an entire bottle of bourbon, and it was probably stale anyway. He'd been planning to trade the bourbon for milk, but they had plenty of other things to trade. "Bourbon'll get you the full menu."

Greg blinked. "Thank you," he whispered, still blushing.

When they got to the Village fiefdom, sure enough, Janice was among the first people to greet them. She squeezed Greg's right bicep and told him she could tell he'd built up a lot of muscle working with one arm and complimented his "tender blue eyes." Greg smiled like a bashful schoolboy and Daryl wondered how the hell he could let himself believe that bullshit, though he had to give Janice some credit– she said it all exactly like she meant it. "How would you like to see my room in the parsonage? It's very quaint."

Greg nodded eagerly. "Let me get my pack. I have bourbon."

"I _do_ like bourbon."

"The _parsonage_?" Daryl asked with a raised eyebrow when Greg had gone back to the truck.

"It's a 19th century replica village," Janice told him. "So it's got a parsonage. Two of my friends and I live there, in case…" She looked from Roscoe to T-Dog, but didn't bother with Daryl. "Anyone else is interested in a _tour_?"

"No thank you, ma'am," Roscoe said. "I'd rather like to keep my genitalia intact when I get home to my woman."

T-Dog just shook his head while smiling like he was trying not to laugh.

"Ya turned the _parsonage_ into a _brothel_?" Daryl asked.

" _I_ didn't," Janice told him. "It was already serving that purpose when I got here. It's almost as if I'm not the first woman to have thought of such a thing."

"Oldest profession in the world," Roscoe said.

Janice led Greg off while the other three men waited for the Mayor, who was being fetched to greet them.

Mayor Tom, as he called himself, showed them around the bustling village. It had two wells that supplied drinking water, two outdoor hand-pumped showers surrounded by wooden stalls, water troughs for washing up in, wooden outhouses for bathrooms, and a windmill powering an old-fashioned grist mill they'd started using for real.

"Once it grows, can we send our sorghum here for grinding?" Roscoe asked the Mayor. "Maybe you could keep ten percent and give us the rest back as flour."

"Twenty-five percent," the Mayor said.

"Fifteen," Roscoe countered.

"Twenty."

"We'll run it by our Council," Roscoe told him.

They had grills and fire pits and wood stoves for cooking. Their farmlands, though only slightly larger than those in the cabin fiefdom's, were more fertile and brimming with crops. They had three dairy cows, as well as four goats they also milked, one pack horse, six chickens, two pigs they were trying to breed, and, now, two roosters.

"Willing to trade one of them roosters?" Daryl asked. They had chickens, but they only laid unfertilized eggs. It would be good to raise more from chicks.

"Happily," Mayor Tom answered. "Two roosters stress the chickens. I think they're laying fewer eggs because of it. But a rooster _is_ valuable."

"So are tampons around here," T-Dog told him, "from what we hear."

"50 boxes of tampons," Mayor Tom said, "50 packages of pads. 200 double-A batteries, 100 9 Volts, and 100 D-Cell."

"Just for the rooster?" Roscoe asked. "The rooster, hell, you just told us you don't even really want?"

Daryl could see how Roscoe had talked himself into a record contract. He talked Mayor Tom down to half the batteries and two-thirds of the tampons and pads for the rooster.

They were passing the parsonage now. "That's a brothel," Mayor Tom told them, as though it wasn't obvious from the two women standing outside in revealing clothes with come-hither smiles. Roscoe tipped his hat to both of them as they passed by.

"They set their own rates and kick back five percent to the King and forty percent to the Village and keep the rest for themselves," Mayor Tom explained. "So you can ask for a price list if you like."

T-Dog shook his head.

"Just be warned that if there's any abuse of the women," the Mayor continued, "our Constable will beat the ever-living shit out of the john. The parsonage serves as an Inn as well, if you need lodging while passing through to the Parthenon or to the Bowling Green fiefdom - there's a guest room in there, and a lady will make you breakfast in the morning. Not one of _those_ ladies. They can't cook worth shit. But _another_ lady. The price for that is set by our Treasurer. I can get you that list as well if you like." He stopped walking as they neared a small, church-like building with a bell. "This is our school."

Daryl peeked through the open door and saw nine kids sitting in the old-fashioned desks and copying out cursive letters on handheld slates as a woman wrote them on the main chalkboard. Two of the older-looking kids in the back were doing math on their slates instead of the cursive, while one was just drawing a picture of a pair of large boobs with dark nipples.

"Jonathan, I see you!" Mayor Tom announced, and the kid jumped to attention, sat straight in his desk, and wiped off his slate quickly with his sleeve. "That's my boy," Mayor Tom said with a sigh as he led them on.

Next they passed the old blacksmith shop where a man was forging horse shoes. They had a smokehouse where large slabs of meat hung. "Is that cow?" Daryl asked.

"One of our four cows stopped producing milk, so we slaughtered it for meat. We do some hunting and fishing, too."

They went by the ice house next and then passed a woman churning butter.

"How much for the milk and butter?" Daryl asked.

With some haggling, they worked out a deal, which was less than the Cabin Council had pre-approved before sending them off. They didn't make the trade just yet, however. Roscoe ended up playing a little impromptu concert for some of the Villagers with the guitar he had, of course, brought with him just in case that opportunity should arise.

Fifteen minutes after Roscoe finished his concert and they had unloaded the tampons and batteries and loaded up the milk and butter in coolers, Greg was still not back at the truck. T-Dog glanced at his watch.

"Think we oughtta knock on her door or something?" Roscoe asked.

Daryl scratched the back of his neck. "Give 'em fifteen more minutes."

"Maybe she gave him a heart attack," T-Dog said. "She about gave me a heart attack when I saw her."

"Watch out now," Roscoe warned. "Don't let Darlene hear you saying that."

"Darlene doesn't care if I admire the menu, as long as I don't order off it."

"You keep telling yourself that," Roscoe replied. "They _all_ care. Rosita caught me noticing Michonne's ass last week, and I tell you what, I was paying for that for _days_."

"That _is_ some ass," T-Dog agreed with a chuckle. "And I mean, it's kind of hard _not_ to notice the way she's always shaking it when she walks."

"Mhmhm," Roscoe agreed. "Don't let Rick hear you say that, though."

In the distance, Daryl saw the door to the parsonage open. Greg stepped out onto the porch and lingered for a while with Janice, who kissed him on the cheek, laughed at something he said, and then pushed him gently toward the stairs.

"Damn," Roscoe said. "He's been in there for _two hours_. Must be one hell of a full menu."

"Think maybe he got an extra pity hour," T-Dog said.

"Yeah, 'cause she seems like such a nice, generous girl," Roscoe replied dryly.

"Janice ain't half bad," Daryl told them as he headed for the driver's seat.

Greg was jogging toward the pick up now. He apologized for his tardiness as he climbed into the passenger's seat, and they took off back home, Daryl anxious to see the results of that pregnancy test.

[*]

Carol took the pregnancy test while Daryl was away because she didn't think she could stand his nervous, hopeful pacing while they waited together for it. Her heart sank when she saw that it was negative, and she felt guilty for wasting a test.

After seizing a roll of toilet paper, she wrapped the test four times before burying it deep in the bathroom trashcan, as if _that_ could bury her disappointment.


	103. The Apocalypse Has Its Downsides

Daryl pulled to a stop at the military checkpoint that blocked the road two miles outside the Village. The soldier on duty asked for the password, asked where he'd been and where he was going, and then peered inside his bed at the supplies.

He came back to the driver's side and spoke through the open window. "We're going to need a gallon of that milk before you can drive on."

"Ain't no fee for clearin' a checkpoint," Daryl muttered.

"There is for clearing this one," the soldier said. "Not much. Just one gallon, and I can wave you on your way."

The other soldiers looked away nonchalantly, as though they didn't want to be involved in this extortion, but nor did they intervene.

"Your General know you do this?" Daryl asked. "General Wilson?"

"General Wilson is on patrol in the western quadrant. I'm in charge here for the moment. And I think I know him better than you do. I doubt you two have ever met."

"Yeah? Fought with 'em against the rebels down in south Georgia."

The soldier's hands shifted nervously on his rifle. To further his discomfort, Roscoe leaned forward between the front seats and grinned at the soldier through the window. "Daryl _Dixon_ here," he said, "knows a lot of folk in the Kingdom. Reckon that's what happens when you're the _brother_ of the _King_."

The soldier's face grew an ashy white. "All clear," he shouted loudly to the other soldiers. "Let them pass."

Roscoe threw himself back against his seat as Daryl drove on.

"Well, at least he wasn't asking for a blowjob," T-Dog said.

Greg flushed red from ear to ear.

"Aw, man, sorry," T-Dog told him. "That really wasn't aimed at you."

On their way home, the men stopped to investigate an off-the-beaten-path whiskey distillery Roy had discovered in his research of phone books and maps. They slid from the truck and pulled on Carol's "clearing sleeves," as they'd come to be called. Roscoe helped Greg with his. Greg held a handgun in his one good hand, Roscoe steadied his rifle, and Daryl readied his crossbow as T-Dog busted through the window of the tasting room with a large rock.

Daryl and Roscoe quickly shot the four walkers inside. How many people, he wondered, had locked themselves inside of bars and distilleries and wineries in the end, only to drink themselves to death?

"Jesus." T-Dog held a hand over his mouth and nose as he entered. "Can barely breathe in here."

The place reeked of whiskey because the walkers had managed to knock into, spill over, and break open countless bottles. The men recovered only five intact ones.

Daryl shoved one full bottle into Greg's pack. He felt bad for the man, and thought Greg could use it to pay Janice the next time they went to the Village to trade. "That's yers."

"Supply runners only get to keep ten percent of the alcohol they find, right?" Greg asked.

"That's yers," Daryl repeated. "Ain't no one got to know."

"Doesn't make me much better than that solider, does it?" he asked.

Daryl scowled, not because Greg was being ethical, but because he felt like his kindness was being shot down. "Fine, take yer shots out it and then give it to the damn pantry."

"Thanks, though," Greg said hastily. "For...just...thanks, Daryl."

"Mhmhm."

A door from the tasting room opened into the distillery, where they found all the barrels punctured. Some had been tapped, but others appeared just to have been violently stabbed open. The floor was discolored with whiskey stains.

"Damn waste," Daryl muttered.

It was a small distillery, and there were only three copper stills. They were all empty. The washback was full with thousands of yeasty liters, but a walker floated face down in the liquid that filled the large, pine structure.

T-Dog shook his head. "What a shame. Don't guess we should touch that stuff now."

"Think he went for a swim in it?" Roscoe asked.

"Probably jumped in it drunk one day," Greg said, "after cutting open all those barrels in a drunken fit. Then he drowned and turned in there."

"This world makes a lot of folk crazy." Roscoe pushed the walker with the butt of his rifle, like a little boy poking a worm on the sidewalk just to watch it curl. The thing stirred but couldn't seem to turn itself over. "What a way to go."

"Grain," Daryl said, nodding to the bags of barley, rye, yeast, and sugar stacked on metal shelves. When he neared them, the sound of gnashing arose behind the shelves. He raised his bow, rounded the bags, and found a walker on its knees with two mice in its mouth and another in its hands. He shot, and the one still-living mouse slipped away, squeaked, and ran across the distillery floor.

They inspected the bags and found that only one was infested by mice. The walker must have kept them largely at bay.

"I bet Eugene knows how to make whiskey," Roscoe said as he shoulder his rifle and began rolling over a dolly.

"Hell," Daryl told him, " _I_ know how to make whiskey. Will Dixon was a moonshiner."

"Never taught me," Roscoe said a little wistfully.

"Be glad he never tried to teach ya nothin'," Daryl told him. "Taught with a switch. And I was thinkin' more along the lines of _food_."

"Oh, yeah," Roscoe said. "I guess you can cook with all that stuff, too." He tossed a bag onto the dolly, and soon the others were joining in while Greg stood guard with his handgun.

[*]

Lilly Chambler threw Carol curious glances as the camp dined beneath the large picnic pavilion the carpenter Juan and his helpers had constructed after the fence was built. Three grills - one propane and two charcoal - and the outdoor pizza oven were located on the east end of the structure, along with a serving table. Tonight, they'd lit the fire pits located on the north and south side of the "dinning hall," as they'd come to call it. Fall temperatures could be nippy.

Carol knew why Lilly was looking at her. She'd been forced to sign the pregnancy test out of the clinic, so Lilly and Dr. S. must both know that she thought she might be pregnant. When Lilly caught her eye, Carol shook her head ever so slightly and went back to her meal.

"Are you all right, Mama?" Sophia asked her. It was rare Sophia said mama these days. She'd switched largely to _mom_ , or, when she was feeling snarky, _mother_.

"I'm fine," Carol told her. "I just miss your dad."

Sophia laughed. "He's only been gone since this morning."

"Is this seat taken?" Patrick asked, and Sophia shook her head. He sat down next to her with a tray of food. Patrick had been serving behind the grill today and so was one of the last to join the diners. "You want my potatoes?" he asked Sophia. Carol had roasted them with a little garlic, salt, onion, and oil, and she'd already been complimented three times on how good they were, so she didn't believe Patrick when he said, "I don't really like them."

Sophia's face brightened. She _loved_ potatoes, a fact Carol was sure Patrick had figured out. "Thanks!" she exclaimed.

Patrick was smiling when he slid them onto Sophia's now almost empty plate.

[*]

The men reached the military checkpoint three miles outside of the cabin fiefdom after the sun had set. Abraham greeted them with a smile. "Loving the rooster," he told them as he nodded to the cage, which was wedged between two stacks of sacks of barley in the bed of the pickup so it wouldn't shift around.

General Boone was by one of the Humvees, on the radio, when Daryl went over to talk to him. He waited for them man to be done and then told him about the extortionist soldier under General Wilson's command.

"I'll inform General Wilson," Boone assured him. "I'm sure he'll take care of it."

Daryl nodded to the radio. "Problems?"

"A large herd near Bowling Green. The King is requesting backup. I'll have to leave Abraham in charge of patrolling the cabins and go with Omar and some other men." He reached inside his green jacket and pulled out two envelopes. "Would you see Karen gets this letter, and that my children get the other one? I might not be able to stop in for a couple of weeks."

Daryl nodded and took the envelopes.

"That's one of the few things I like about this world," the General said. "The apocalypse has returned to us the lost art of letter writing."

"Returned a lot of lost arts," Daryl told him.

[*]

Night had fallen. Sophia and Mika were already in their room. As she waited for Daryl to get home, Carol sat on the couch before the fireplace, which she'd lit for the first time since April. A book lay open on her lap, but she couldn't concentrate on reading it.

When the front door opened, she dropped the book and reached instinctively for her knife. Her hand slid away when Daryl propped his crossbow against the wall and shut and locked the door behind himself.

He came and sat beside her, and she kissed and hugged him. "Glad your home."

He wrapped his arms around her. "Me too. Got us some butter and milk from the village fiefdom, and barley, yeast, sugar, and rye from a distillery we looted."

"No whiskey cake?" she asked with a teasing smile.

He smiled back. "Nah, but you can bake us some."

Carol pulled away from his embrace. "I took the test," she said abruptly, as if she was pulling off a bandaid. "It was negative."

She could see the disappointment twist his face, and his disappointment twisted her heart. He fought off the expression, pulled her close again, and kissed the top of her head. "Next time," he whispered.

"What if my period never starts again?"

"It'll start," he told her. He put a finger under her chin and tilted her face up. "I love ya."

Her heart trembled at the profession, because it was far from something he said daily or even weekly. "I love you, too, Daryl."

Carol found comfort in his kisses, and, eventually, in his body as they joined together wordlessly in their shared bed. Naked beneath the warm weight of the comforter, she drifted off to sleep to the sound of the forest surrounding the snug, safe cabin fiefdom on every side.

[*]

An unfamiliar, piercing sound awoke Carol in the morning. She startled and rolled over in bed and seized her handgun from the night stand. "What the hell is that?" she asked as she racked the slide.

Daryl chuckled. "Put yer gun away, woman. It's just the damn rooster."

It cock-a-doodle-dooed again, and, now that she knew what it was, the sound was obvious. "You got a _rooster_?"

"Mhmhm."

She slapped the gun back on the dresser, grabbed the extra pillow that had become bunched up between theirs, and wrapped it around her ears. "Is this how early it _always_ gets up?"

"Be glad when we've got chicks."

[*]

Sophia had abandoned Carol to eat at a table with the 12-15 year olds: Joy and Carter Boone, Patrick, the huntress Olivia, and Carl. Mika had already taken off to play on the playground with Luke, Meghan, and the twin boys. Daryl was in the watchtower, and so she was left with the dinner company of Karen, who sat next to her reading a letter, and Rosita, who sat across from her finishing off her last bite.

Michonne put her dinner tray down next to Rosita. As she sat down, she asked Karen, "Love letter?"

"It's from James." Karen folded up the paper and lay it beside her tray.

"Is it romantic? Or sexy?" Michonne asked. "Or a bit of both?"

"Mostly romantic. He's a very good writer. He was an English literature teacher, you know."

"Well I for one am all romanced out," Rosita said. "Roscoe's written me _ten_ songs now."

Michonne chuckled. "How about Daryl? Is he ever romantic?"

"Often," Carol said. "In his own individual way, which does not involve letters or songs."

"Or candy or flowers, I suppose," Rosita said.

"Actually, sometimes it does involve flowers. But only flowers with _meanings._ "

"Is this Daryl we're talking about?" Michonne asked.

Rick, taking the last seat at their table, sat down next to Michonne. "What about Daryl?"

Michonne turned her smile on him. "He's a real Casanova apparently. Seems you need to step up your game."

"Pretty sure I can out-game Daryl."

Michonne draped an arm around him and kissed his cheek. Rick breathed in and looked around. "This is the life, isn't it? Outdoor dining. Good food. Kids playing. No one inside alone watching TV or playing video games. It's like the Fourth of July year-round. Why didn't we live like this before?"

"Because before we could go down to the 24-hour Walmart and get ice cream whenever we wanted," Rosita said. "And not have to ration water and power and food. And not have to clean walkers off our fence in the morning. And we got to eat cow and pig and chicken instead of snake and possum and bear."

"The apocalypse does have its downsides," Rick conceded before pulling a piece of barbecue snake off his shish-ka-bob and popping it into his mouth.


	104. Halloween

Carol was relieved to find her period had started. She told Daryl that night in bed, after he tried to make a move on her, and he got that little, lopsided grin that always made her heart patter. "So yer out of commission tonight, but yer still in commission on the baby makin'?"

"Well, that's _one_ way of putting it," she said. "A very Dixonesque way."

"Sorry."

"It just means it's still _possible_ ," she warned him. "It doesn't mean it's _going_ to happen."

" _Know_ that," he said. "Hell ya keep tellin' me that for?"

"I just...I think I'm petering out."

"Ain't petering out. Gave me the ride of my life last night."

"I mean I think my _fertility_ may be petering out. I don't know if I can give you this, Daryl. This baby you want."

He pulled her against his chest and kissed her forehead. "Ain't up to you. Up to God."

"I don't want to disappoint you. I don't want you wishing you'd married a younger woman."

"Who?" he asked, as though the idea were absurd.

"I don't know. Someone other than me."

"Don't be a damn fool. There's _only_ you."

[*]

An arrow whizzed from Daryl's crossbow and the walker fell. Darlene and Rosita picked off two more with their rifles. They ignored the ones trapped inside of cars in the gravel parking lot of Pete's Pizza and Salad Buffet.

"Roy's good at finding out-of-the-way places to loot," Darlene said. The Council had voted to send this trio on a supply run to store up goods for trade, and Roy had selected the destination from his maps and phonebooks.

Daryl made his way to the front door, crossbow intensely pointed. Darlene and Rosita flanked him. Through the glass, they could see over a dozen walkers inside, but they were spread out. Daryl pointed to the far end, where there was another door, and Rosita jogged over and began pounding on the glass.

Darlene joined her. The women waited until all the walkers were mushed against the far door and clawing to get out at the fresh meat before Rosita yanked the door open. Darlene picked them off with her rifle as they spilled out. Meanwhile, Daryl entered the front door and shot at the tail end of the exiting herd with his bow until his quiver was empty. The women stepped in over the fallen bodies and began looking around as Daryl recovered his arrows. He'd enjoyed the target practice, but it had become almost like squishing ants. He missed the adrenaline rush he used to get from killing walkers.

After he wiped the blood off his tips and reloaded his bow, Daryl began walking around the joint. The pizza place was decorated for Easter, with multicolored, foam eggs and fake plastic grass lining the serving bar, where the lingering remnants of decomposed food sent up a foul stench.

Roy had made a good pick, because in the kitchen they found cans upon cans of the food used on the pizzas and in the salad bar: green olives, black olives, jalapenos, pizza sauce, alfredo sauce, spinach, banana peppers, garbanzo beans, kidney beans, beets, and carrots. There were bags of fresh vegetables, but they of course had turned to a putrid, runny, rotting mess, and the tubs of salad dressing smelled rancid. But they collected jars of sunflower seeds and bacon bits, bags of croutons, and boxes upon boxes of chocolate pudding mix and Jello mix. "I never understood why salad bars have jello and pudding," Rosita said.

"So the kids'll eat their veggies," Daryl speculated.

Near the cash register, Daryl found a large basket full of individually wrapped peppermints, which he dumped into his backpack. He walked to the small arcade in the back and smashed a gumball machine and emptied it of its giant gumballs. He also looted one of those 50-cent machines with toys in cheap plastic bubbles.

Rosita caught him zipping up his pack over the bubbles. "What the hell do you want those for?"

"None of yer damn business," he told her.

She shrugged, adjusted her green cap, and walked over to the pinball machine. "Think we'll ever have anything like this again? Video games and TV shows and pizza places? Or will the world just be stuck in the stone age for a few centuries?"

"Ain't in the stone age. We got solar power. Running water."

"We're living on the shells of the past," she said. "We don't really know how to build the world we once lived in. We don't even have a clue how much went into building it."

"Yeah," Daryl muttered. "But we know how to survive. Been survivin'. And we know how to settle. 'Cause we been settlin'."

Rosita nodded. "Let's get this shit loaded up and check out the Quick Lube."

[*]

Fists pounded on the cabin door. "I got it, I got it!" Daryl cried and grabbed the bowl before Carol could. He threw open the door.

There was a four-foot, one-inch ghost standing on the porch. Daryl gasped and stumbled back a few steps in mock terror. Beneath the white sheet with eyes and mouth holes cut out, Luke giggled. "Trick or Treat!" he shouted through the sheet. "Smell my feet! Give me something good to eat!"

"Oh, pheeew," said Carol, covering her heart with her hand. "It's just Luke."

"That was my costume every year when I's a boy," Daryl told Luke. It was the same sheet he slept under every night for years, holes and all.

A few other kids were gathering on the porch now. Luke must have run ahead of them all. Next to Luke was a three-foot, five-inch black cat. "Meow!" Andre said and held out his open pillow case. "Trick or treat!"

Next to the cat was a fairy, with a construction paper wand and felt wings. "Trick or treat!" Meghan said and tucked her wand under her arm before holding out her pillow case.

And next to her were Juan and Christina's twin boys – sharing one large shirt as a pair of Siamese twins. "Trick or Treat!" they cried in unison.

"Where's y'all's costumes?" Daryl asked Rick and Michonne with a smirk as they stepped up on the porch behind Andre.

Rick slung an arm around Michonne's shoulders. "She's a supermodel, and I'm her rich, older husband."

Daryl stuck three individually-wrapped peppermints _and_ three giant gumballs in each of the pillowcases. Then he tossed a plastic bubble from the machine at the pizza place in each pillowcase. Luke's bubble had a green, plastic army figurine with a parachute attached to its back. He could drop it down out of the treehouse and watch it float. Meghan's had pretty, unicorn press-on tattoos, and the twins' each had bouncy balls that lit up when you bounced them.

"Best house yet!" Luke exclaimed, which gave Daryl a flash of pride.

Meghan burst his bubble when she said, "I thought the soda house was better."

Who the hell had the soda house?

"Carl isn't with you?" Carol asked Rick. "Does he think he's too old and cool to trick-or-treat? Sophia went."

"Carl wanted to go with Olivia," Michonne said with a wink.

Carl and Olivia arrived a few minutes after that group left. Carl wore an eyepatch over his left eye. That and a bandanna on his head was as far as he'd gone for the night. "What are ya?" Daryl asked. "A lazy pirate?"

"Ha ha," Carl replied with a roll of his one visible eye.

Olivia was wearing her own ghillie suit that she'd made to wear while hunting with her older brothers.

"Awesome costume," Daryl told her.

"What?" Carl asked. "She already had that. I at least had to put mine together."

Daryl gave them three mints and three gumballs, but instead of the bubble toys, he scooped a handful of .22 ammo into each of their pillow cases.

"Thanks, man," Carl said.

"Don't call him _man_ ," Olivia scolded him. "You call adults _sir_."

"Thank you, _sir_ ," Carl said a bit sarcastically.

The next group were Roy and Janet's grandchildren. Roy lingered at a distance, supervising. Emma was Wonder Woman, or so she claimed. She wore a red cape, thick, black long johns under a pair of blue shorts, combat boots, and a plastic tiara. There was another white-sheeted ghost, Tyler, and Kylie was dressed as a solider. She wore a camo outfit likely meant for a teenager – two sizes too big for her, the sleeves and pant legs rolled up.

Little faces looked down into their pillowcases after Daryl tossed in mint, gumballs, and plastic bubbles full of assorted toys. With a thank you, the group moved on.

The next time the door swung open, the porch was full. Standing before Daryl and shouting "Trick or Treat!" were Joe and Linda's kids Ryan and Faith and Austin and Debroah's kids Houston, Dallas, and Grace. The fathers were supervising at a distance while sipping from cans of Budweiser and chatting with each other.

Austin raised his beer can toward Carol and said, "Hello, ma'am!" before he went back to talking to Joe, who only nodded to them.

"What do we have here?" Carol asked, trying to make out the costumes.

"He's an injured football player," said Daryl, pointing to Houston. The boy had a Cowboys jersey on, a glove, a football tucked under his left armpit, and gauze wrapped around his ankle.

"No," Dallas, who wore a Cowboy's cap and a whistle around his neck said, "Houston is _actually_ injured. He cut himself up doing something stupid."

"And Dallas is a football coach," Carol said. "And Grace is a witch. Ryan is…"

Ryan was wearing jeans, a plaid button-down shirt, and boots that were a little too big for him.

"I'm a lumberjack!" Ryan shouted.

"A very handsome lumberjack," Carol said. "And Faith is a very lovely ladybug."

When that group left, Daryl fished a pack of matches out of his back pocket to re-light the candle in the jack o' lantern, which had dribbled down to wax. The jack-o-lantern had a "scary grin" because Sophia and Mika had carved it together – refusing assistance from Daryl – and one had wanted a happy jack o' lantern and one had wanted a frightening jack o' lantern.

Enough pumpkins had grown in the cropland that every cabin got one. As a consequence, the Dixon cabin had enjoyed pumpkin pie made from the guts _and_ roasted pumpkin seeds. Daryl had tried pumpkin seeds as a boy, because he had heard some families did that, but he'd eaten them straight out of the pumpkin. He ended up spitting them out of his mouth onto their kitchen floor and getting a beating over it. So when Carol roasted them – with salt and oil and garlic –he reluctantly tasted her offering. His face lit up when the first one touched his tongue, and he immediately scooped up a handful, much to her amusement.

Daryl lingered on the porch to smoke a cigarette and watch the kids in the far distance beyond the park going inside one of the cabins for the night. He wondered if they would trade candy, like he never did. He always rode his bicycle to town to trick or treat, where the houses were closer together and less poor, and it was late by the time he got back home. He'd hide half his loot in a metal footlocker under the porch so his mother and father wouldn't eat it, and then he'd walk in with just half his pillowcase full. Will Dixon would always say, "That's _all_ ya got? What a pussy." But he'd have candy for weeks, and when Mama forgot to shop and make dinner, he'd have something to eat.

Daryl stubbed out his cigarette and went back inside. Carol was curled up on the couch, reading before the fireplace. She closed her book when he sat down next to her. "The toys are a nice touch."

"Thought so."

"But aren't you only supposed to keep ten percent of any candy you find and give the rest to the pantry?" The constitution specified that on a supply run, all "regular food" and medicine went to the communal pantry. The supply runners could keep for themselves ten percent of any alcohol, candy, or tobacco products, and they could take what they wished when it came to "non-essentials."

"Gumballs're non-essential. So's peppermint."

"They're candy," she said.

"'S Halloween! This what I get for livin' with a Councilwoman?"

"Well I don't guess I'll be impeached over it. They're going back to the community anyway."

The door shuddered in its frame from a heavy knock. Daryl leaped up from the couch and scooped up the bowl, while Carol made her way more slowly after him.

Carter Boone was a vampire, complete with a set of plastic teeth. He must have found his costume in storage in a Halloween box in their cabin's attic, because it looked machine made. His sister Joy was a rodent of some kind. Daryl waved to General Boone, who stood at a distance behind them. He'd come home for the holiday, leaving one of his captains in charge. The other men had taken to ribbing Boone and calling his nearly twice weekly drop-ins "conjugal visits," but he'd just smiled and said, "It's good to be General."

When Daryl shut the door, he said to Carol, "Ain't those kids a little old for supervision on Halloween?"

"I'm sure he just wants to spend time with his children," Carol told him.

"Think that's all of 'em. 'Cept Soph and them."

"They should be back soon." Sophia and Mika had gone with Patrick to work their way up the mountain from the first cabin. Patrick had driven up in a golf cart to pick them up and drive them the three miles or so to the start of the camp.

Sure enough, there was soon another knock at the door. Carol grabbed the bowl and Daryl answered. Mika had put a lot of work into her Princess costume, which had pleased Carol, because she'd been able to teach the little girl to sew, a skill that had not much interested Sophia.

Patrick had gotten slightly more into the spirit of things than Carl. He was dressed as a cowboy, with Roscoe's borrowed hat, Austin's belt with the buckle shaped like the star of Texas, a rope that was made to look like a lasso, and a pair of cowboy boots that almost fit him.

And Sophia…Sophia had wanted to go as a _walker_ , but Daryl had told her that wasn't a good idea. "Someone's liable to shoot ya!" So instead she was a creepy clown. She wore a woman's reddish brown wig and a wild polka-dot shirt she'd found in one of the cabins and had made her face up outlandishly with make-up.

After they'd collected their loot, Sophia asked if Patrick could come inside to trade candy. Daryl hovered nearby in the kitchen as they scattered their loot on the coffee table and living room floor, and he noticed that Patrick was a complete push-over when it came to the trades Sophia offered.

[*]

Mika was passed out sleeping on the bear skin rug with three empty candy wrappers scattered around her and an empty, guzzled can of Orange Crush on its side by her face. Patrick sat on the couch next to Sophia and tossed a can of Coca-Cola gently from hand to hand. Daryl was lingering by the fireplace, trying to look like he was fiddling with his bow, when Carol knew he was really keeping an eye on the young couple. She walked over, put a hand on his back, and smiled at him. He half-smiled back.

"I'll trade you a peppermint for the Coke," Sophia attempted.

"A peppermint?" Patrick asked. "That's not really fair."

Carol was glad he'd said that, because she thought Sophia was beginning to walk all over that boy.

"Two peppermints?" Sophia tried.

"No, but I'll _share_ it with you, if you want."

"Okay!" Sophia agreed. "Crack it open!"

"How about on the back porch?" Patrick asked. "Look at the stars while we drink it?"

Daryl caught Carol's eyes, and she hid her laugh.

Sophia followed Patrick to the back porch as Daryl scooped up Mika and carried her off to bed. Later, Carol went to wash up the plates she'd left in the sink. Soon, Daryl was standing behind her and looking out the window at the kids.

Patrick and Sophia had lighted the tiki torch and were standing by the rail. The empty soda can they'd shared rested on the porch rail. Sophia had her hands down on the rail, and Patrick was inching his hand closer to hers.

"Stop spying," Carol insisted and reached up to close the blinds.

"Yer the one pretendin' to wash the dishes so you can watch."

"Was not."

When Carol turned off the water, Daryl pulled her away from the sink and back against his chest. "Happy Halloween." His strong arms enveloped her from behind, and she relaxed back into his embrace.

"You really love your holidays, don't you?" she asked.

"Reckon. Dunno why."

"I love them, too. I think maybe everyone coming together, the community coming together...it just feels like... _home_."

"Mhmm..." He nuzzled her cheek with his nose and whispered, "Wanna try to make a baby tonight?"

Now that her period had come and gone, he had his hopes up again, but Carol was less optimistic. "I don't want to have to _try_ to do anything tonight," she told him. She craned her neck back to look at him. "But I want to make love to my husband, if that's all right?"

"Pretty sure yer husband'd be a'ight with that." He kissed her but then abruptly pulled away because the doorknob was turning.

When Patrick and Sophia came in from the porch, Sophia was wearing Patrick's brown suede jacket.

As the boy was preparing to leave, Daryl pointed out that Sophia still had his jacket. Patrick shook his head. "No, sir, it's for her."

"'S late," he told Patrick gruffly. "Gettin' a bit cold. Ya don't wanna walk home without it."

"It's not _too_ cold, sir. And I have a long-sleeve shirt on. I'll be fine." Patrick turned his attention to Carol. "Thank you, Mrs. Dixon, as always for your hospitality."

When Patrick was gone, Sophia said, "Think I'm heading to bed." She cuddled the jacket tighter around her shoulders as she disappeared into her bedroom.

"Hell's that?" Daryl grumbled when her door shut. "She don't need another damn jacket, and he's gonna be cold."

Carol chuckled and patted his shoulder. "I think it's like giving a girl your letter jacket in high school."

He narrowed his eyes. "That mean they's boyfriend and girlfriend now? She's too damn young for that!"

"Patrick's about as respectful a boy as I could ask for," Carol told him. "And Sophia and I have had plenty of frank conversations about what she is and is not old enough for. I think they'll keep it to hand holding for now, sweetheart. Maybe some hugging. A little quick kiss, maybe."

"Ain't gonna be no kissin' under my roof. Or on my porch. Or within five miles of me."

Carol raised an eyebrow. "No kissing under your roof, huh? That's a shame. I was thinking of kissing something special tonight."

"Stop," he said, but he took her hand and tugged her toward the bedroom.


	105. Thanksgiving

Sophia was wearing Patrick's coat the next morning when Daryl took her hunting, just the two of them, for some daddy-daughter time. She'd buttoned it up to the very top, and it was a size too big, so she'd rolled up the sleeves.

"Gonna get us a wild turkey for Thanksgivin'," Daryl told her. "Let it smoke all damn month." Now that they had the smokehouse, they wouldn't have to switch the feast to whenever they happened to catch one this year.

Sophia checked the safety on her rifle but didn't respond. She was smiling but seemed off somewhere in her head.

"Penny for your thoughts?" he asked. That was something Uncle Clevus used to say to him whenever he was quiet for more than half an hour on a hunting trip. It always startled him, because no one else had ever cared about his thoughts.

"I was just thinking about something funny Patrick said last night," Sophia told him.

They crunched on over fallen leaves deeper into the forest, where he'd seen some sign of wild turkey yesterday. "Why ya like Patrick so much anyhow?"

"Why wouldn't I? He's nice."

"If you and Patrick was the last two people on earth, who would hunt for ya?"

"I'd hunt for myself. You've taught me. I'm not great, but I could do it. I'll get better."

"Who'd shoot walkers for ya?"

"I'd shoot them myself," she said. As if to prove her point, she raised her rifle and leveled it at a walker that was crouched, several feet away, feasting on the carcass of a dead coyote. It took her two shots, but the walker went down.

"Good job," Daryl told her. He walked toward the walker to check its pockets. "And what would Patrick do?"

"He'd cook for us."

"Mhmhm." He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and slipped it into his coat pocket.

"Do the laundry," Sophia said. "Burn the trash. All that stuff."

They walked on silently. After about five minutes, Sophia said, "Mom says you're so grumpy about me liking Patrick because you think he's nothing like you, so me liking him instead of some more rugged boy like Carter or Carl feels like a rejection of you."

"Did she now? Where'd she get her psychology degree?"

"In the school of hard knocks," Sophia said, a little gloomily.

Daryl's hands instinctively tightened on his crossbow.

"But you know what?" she asked. "Patrick is a _lot_ like you."

"How so?" Daryl couldn't for the life of him think of one way they were alike.

"He treats me the way you treat Mom."

"Oh." Daryl thought about that for awhile. "Listen, Soph, you's just thirteen. You don't need a boyfriend yet."

"I turn fourteen in less than two months. And this isn't the old world, Dad. Kids grow up faster."

"'Zactly why you _don't_ need a boyfriend who's older than ya." Hell, all he could think about when he was Patrick's age was sex. Sex, sex, sex, morning until night. It just got worse when he turned sixteen, and Patrick would turn sixteen in January. Patrick was a good kid, sure he was, Daryl couldn't argue with that, but he was still a _teenage boy_. "Think y'all should just be friends, Soph."

"That's what Mom said."

"She did?" he asked with surprise.

"But then she said she knew she couldn't stop it from happening so she was going to lay some ground rules and she gave me a long…long…" Sophia rolled her eyes, " _long_ talk."

"What're the ground rules?" Daryl asked.

"I'm not allowed to be with Patrick at his cabin." Patrick lived in Sasha and Abraham's cabin, but Abraham was usually away with the army and Sasha was frequently on watch or at Council Meetings or doing other tasks. "He can come over to ours but only when either you or Mom are home. And I have to spend time hanging out with the other kids, too. I can't just hang out with him all the time."

"Uh. Huh. Well, yer mamma knows what's good for ya." He caught sight of the turkey tracks and pointed.

"Gobbble, gobble!" Sophia said with a grin, and for a moment he was reminded of how young and vulnerable she had once seemed.

[*]

The next day, Rosita stopped Daryl as he was leaving the smokehouse, where he'd gone to check on the wild turkeys that were plucked, salted, and hanging by their feet. He'd just wanted to smell them.

Rosita jutted out her hip and put a hand on it. "I want to go on the trading trip to the Village with you boys tomorrow."

"Hell for?" he asked.

She shrugged. "I'm bored. And I want to see the place."

"Don't need ya." Daryl knew Greg had been religiously saving his rations of alcohol since the last trip, and the man would probably be humiliated if a woman from the camp saw what he was up to there. "Got T-Dog and Roscoe and Greg. Ain't even room for five in the cab."

"Well then let Greg stay behind. It's not like he can help you load."

"Nah. Need Greg."

"Why?" she asked.

"'Cause, uh...he's a good negotiator."

"Roscoe told me he and T-Dog did all the negotiating."

Daryl scratched his chin. "Ain't ya got to clean the walkers?"

"It takes an hour. We can go after I clean the fence."

It went back and forth like this for another couple of minutes before Rosita said, "Tell me why you _really_ don't want me to go."

"What?"

"Is it because the rumors are true? There's a brothel there?"

"Uh..." Daryl scratched behind his ear.

"Just _tell_ me. When you were there, did Roscoe - "

"- _Roscoe_? Hell no! Are you insane? Roscoe?"

Rosita looked suddenly relieved. "I really didn't think he would, but, there's been _rumors_."

"'Bout _Roscoe_?"

"I just overheard some of the soldiers talking when they were stopping in for hot showers." The camp let General Boone's men shower once a week in the cabins, half of the unit on Tuesdays and half on Thursdays. "Three of them had been to the Village, and they were talking about the brothel there. And then one of them said Roscoe was popular there."

"At the _brothel_? Must of meant in the _Village_. Roscoe gave a concert while we's there."

"Oh," Rosita said, "that makes a hell of a lot more sense."

"Y'all got trust issues," Daryl told her.

"Thanks, Dr. Phil. I'll make a note of it."

[*]

The men came back from the Village with five gallons of fresh milk and a pound of butter. Greg still had a light smile on his face when they pulled into camp, and Roscoe had a plastic flower tucked behind his ear.

"Who gave you the flower?" Rosita wanted to know when she greeted him.

"A _lady_ ," Roscoe said.

"Oh?" Rosita asked with a raised eyebrow.

"An adorable little lady," T-Dog told her. "About six years old."

"Don't tell her that," Roscoe muttered. "I kind of like it when she's jealous."

The kids each got a cup of milk a day for four days, and Carol used some in one of her recipes, and then it was all gone. The butter lasted two weeks.

[*]

A hand-drawn calendar hung in the school house / Town Hall, with Thanksgiving Day circled and a big smiley face in the center of the block. It was just four days away now. The squash and a second bushel of mature potatoes had been plucked and stored in the root cellar. The canned cranberry sauce was extracted from the pantry and set aside on the counter of the Big Cabin. So was the apple topping and canned whipped cream the men had snagged, so many months ago, from that breakfast diner where they'd found Michonne.

"I want ice cream to go with the pie," Carol told Daryl as they sat before the fireplace after the girls were in bed.

"And Mika wants a pony, but it ain't happening."

She slid closer to him on the couch and kissed his cheek. "And why can't it happen? I can make it. I've got the sugar, the condensed milk in cans, the salt, and the vanilla extract. I just need milk and heavy cream. Think you can make another trip to the Village?" She batted her eyelashes at him in an exaggerated way.

"Think yer feminine wiles is gonna work on me?" he asked.

"I think your eyes lit up when I said I could make ice cream."

He licked his lips.

"Tell me, Pookie, what was your favorite flavor in the old world?"

"Peach."

"I've got canned peaches. I can freeze them and add them. I can make peach ice cream happen."

"Yer a damn magician, woman."

She smiled and kissed him. "Just get me the magic ingredients."

[*]

Greg was happy about the impromptu trading trip. This time, they brought with them Tylenol and Benadryll, which was what the Mayor had requested over the radio, and Greg brought a full, unopened bottle of wine – which was his entire cabin's weekly ration of alcohol. He'd had to talk T-Dog and Darlene into letting him have the whole thing by offering them some of his food rations.

Roscoe once again put on a little concert for the village – he was becoming a bit of a celebrity in the fiefdom - while Greg spent over two hours in Janice's room and Daryl and T-Dog did the trading.

As Roscoe rejoined them at the pick-up, he said, "I got hit on by a woman after the show. Just like in the old days."

"Yeah, well, don't bring her home like in the old days," T-Dog told him.

"She was seventy," Roscoe admitted. "But tell Rosita she was twenty-two."

T-Dog nodded toward the parsonage. "Here comes Romeo."

Greg was jogging toward them. Once they were all in the pick-up and driving home, T-Dog asked, "So what's on the full menu?"

"Honestly, we just cuddle and talk part of that time," Greg said.

In the rearview mirror, Daryl could see Roscoe and T-Dog both suppressing their laughter. Roscoe's face was turning almost blue with the effort.

"I don't know if that's part of the deal or if she likes doing that with me or …" Greg shrugged. "Or if she's just taking pity. Any which way…she's sweet to me."

"Greg, man," T-Dog told him, smiling affably and shaking his head, "don't fall in love with a prostitute. Don't make that mistake. This is not _Pretty Woman_. And, no offense intended, but you aren't Richard Gere."

"She wasn't always a prostitute, you know," Greg replied defensively. "She had a family once, just like me. A spouse and two kids. She went to church, just like me. We even went to the same high school in Macon! I mean, she was five years behind me, so I never met her, but what are the odds of that?"

T-Dog and Roscoe exchanged looks. They were trying not to laugh at Greg. Daryl could see that they were sincerely trying, but it still irritated him, especially when Roscoe let slip a snort.

Greg's jaw twitched. "Janice is her own person, you know! Just like Darlene or Rosita. She's got her reasons for what she does."

"Think the reason is she's an alcoholic," Roscoe said.

T-Dog snorted.

Daryl barked, "Ain't no goddamn joke!"

Roscoe swallowed and fell silent. T-Dog's face grew serious. Greg looked out the window, his face flushed the color of an atomic fireball. "I'm really looking forward to that ice cream," he said.

"Yeah," Roscoe agreed, clearly relieved at the change of subject, and throwing a cautious glance at Daryl. "I hope Carol can make it cinnamon."

[*]

The cabin fiefdom pulled down the tarps around the dining hall and cracked out the space heaters to create a heated patio when they had their Thanksgiving feast, but with all the bodies in there it soon got warm, and they clicked off one of the heaters.

Rick stood and raised his water glass to make a toast before the meal began:

"Thanksgiving used to be a celebration of the Pilgrim's finding food and friendship in a time of need," he said, "but _we're_ the settlers now. We're the people trying to make our way in a new and frightening world. We're the ones putting down roots, raising up settlements, and dreaming of a fresh start. And we, too, have found friendship in unlikely places. Some of us, in the old world, would never have sat down at a table together, but here, in the new world, we've come to love each other like brothers and sisters. We've survived together, built together, and forged a community together. And for that, I think we should all be thankful."

Shouts of "Here! Here!" and "Amen!" echoed under the canopy, and plates and spoons and bowls clanked as food was passed from hand to hand.

Daryl hummed while he ate, something that always amused Carol, and she took it as a compliment to her cooking. Others complimented her more openly, and she reminded them all to thank Patrick as well. The boy had been an immense help in preparing the feast. "He's becoming quite the chef," Carol said.

Omar took his leave of them before dessert, so he could relieve Abraham from the checkpoint and send him to the feast. "I get to eat first," Omar said, "but he gets to stay overnight." He looked at Ivy, who was seated two tables over, wistfully.

"You're furlough is coming up soon, isn't it?" Carol asked.

"In two weeks."

Carol sent the young captain back to the field with his dessert and several containers of food to share with the soldiers. Those other men might not be members of the cabin fiefdom like Omar, General Boone, and Abraham, but they'd kept it safe, and she thought they deserved a little something better than their normal rations today.

Dessert followed the meal, and the kids were ecstatic. "I almost forgot what ice cream tasted like!" Mika exclaimed, and Luke stopped by Carol's table to say, "You're the best chef ever!"

When the adults were sitting and sipping coffee while the kids cleared the dishes, Austin stood in the middle of the dining hall and held up the football his son had used while trick or treating. "Hey, y'all!" he announced. "Listen up! Can't have Thanksgiving without football! We're picking teams now. Who wants to play?"

Luke, who was clearing Daryl's plate, said, "You're playing right, Daryl?"

"Uh..."

"Football is awesome!"

"Yeah," Daryl said. "Yeah, sure. I'm playin'."

[*]

"I can't wait to see this," Carol told Maggie as they set up camp chairs on the sidelines of the field that had now been outlined in white spray paint. She buttoned up her coat. Little Gi was dressed in a thick, warm, blue-and-white onesie from the University of North Georgia gift shop the supply runners had looted last week. They had emptied it of all the children's clothes, because the kids were growing like weeds.

With T-Dog coaching one team, and Roy coaching the other, the picking began. "Hate this!" Roscoe grumbled. "Reminds me too damn much of gym class."

"And I pick Roscoe," T-Dog said indulgently.

Roscoe whooped and ran to T-Dog's side.

"General Boone," Roy said. Boone was too busy flirting with Karen to hear, so Roy had to repeat himself. He kissed Karen's cheek and strolled over.

T-Dog picked Darlene next. "You're just hoping to get laid tonight, ain't you?" she asked him with a smirk.

"No," he smirked back. "I just know you're very good at blocking."

She chuckled.

Roy called over Anthony next. Then Roscoe whispered something to T-Dog, who picked Rosita.

"I guess I better be fair and choose a girl," Roy said.

"We aren't _girls_ ," Michonne told him. "We're women."

Roy tipped his head to her. "And I choose Michonne."

"Daryl, man, do you even know how to play football?" T-Dog asked. "Or are you more of a Nascar man?"

"'Course I know how to play football!" Daryl threw a glance at Luke, who was sitting cross-legged on the sidelines, ready to watch.

T-Dog called Daryl over.

Roy rounded out the rest of his team with Joe, Mike, Tara, and Zach, while T-Dog chose Sasha, Rick, and Glenn.

"'Fore we start," Daryl told Austin. "How's 'bout ya just go over the rules right quick. Been awhile since anyone's played."

"He doesn't know how to play, does he?" Maggie asked Carol.

"I honestly don't know." She knew Daryl had spent a lot of time alone in the woods. She didn't really imagine him in a pick-up game with the neighborhood kids, but who knew. They'd had a T.V. growing up, so he'd probably watched football, but they also were without power half the time due to unpaid bills.

"Touch is different than tackle anyway," Maggie said. "Weird rules."

The teams were taking their places now. Carol ended up holding little Gi part of the time the game was going on so Maggie could vociferously cheer on Glenn. Carol rooted for Daryl a bit more subtly, and, when he shed his sweatshirt to play in only his sleeveless shirt, she silently admired the way the muscles of his arms rippled. A lot of outer clothes were coming off on that field, as everyone was now working up a sweat.

Daryl wasn't much good at throwing, but he was good at defense. Maybe a little too good. He got a few too many fouls for unnecessary roughness and was thrown out of the game in a huff at the end of the second quarter.

"Goddman ref!" he muttered as he sat down in a chair next to Carol, who chuckled.

Abraham, who had by now been relieved by Omar and had just arrived, was recruited to take Daryl's place. He finished wolfing down his dinner and jogged out onto the field. Sasha high-fived him, said, "Welcome to the team, Captain!" and they all got into position.

Daryl shifted in his chair and looked at Gi, who was rooting for Carol's breast. "Hey, Little Ass Kicker," he whispered as he stroked her thin hair where it curled out from beneath her cap. "Ain't no milk in there. Yet."

Carol smiled weakly. "Want to hold her?"

"Mhmhm. If Maggie don't mind."

Maggie was standing on her feet screaming, "Get him, Glenn! Take the General down!"

"It's not tackle," Carter Boone, who was passing by, told her. "He can't _take him down_." Carter cupped his hand over his mouth and yelled, "Go, Dad, go!"

"Touchdown!" Austin shouted and held his hands up and blew his whistle.

"You were robbed!" Maggie yelled to Glenn.

"I think she won't notice," Carol said as she handed over Gi.

The baby settled in Daryl's arms, and he gave the infant his pinky to suck on to comfort her.

Despite all of Maggie's cheering, Glenn's team lost the game, and a kids and teenagers game geared up next. Team 1 pitted Olivia, Landon, Carter, Sophia, Ryan, Joy, and Tyler against Patrick, Noah, Beth, Dallas, Houston, Luke, and Carl.

Luke and Tyler, being just eight and nine, required a bit of guidance on the field, but Dallas and Houston, who were only slightly older, acted like they'd been playing football since the age of four, and they probably had been.

Patrick fumbled a lot, much to Daryl's chagrin, who muttered about it to Carol. "That boy can't even hold onto a football. Can't hunt, can't shoot, can't – "

"- He can _cook_. And at least he hasn't _fouled out_ of the game," she reminded him.

"Foulin' just means yer tryin'," Daryl said.

She shook her head.

Beth laughed and high-fived Noah when he made a touchdown for their team. Carol noticed Zach pacing the sidelines and eyeing Beth and Noah warily as they walked off laughing together back to their side of the field. Zach looked around, found Halley, and came over and stood beside her to watch the game.

"Good thing Beth and Zach don't have a baby," Carol sad. "Who do you think's going to cheat first?"

"Maybe neither," Daryl replied. "Hell, maybe they'll have a long marriage, Negative Nelly."

"Or maybe they'll just break it off without either one straying first," she replied. "Have an amicable, mutual divorce."

"Ain't nobody does that. Breakups ain't never neat."

"Who's the Negative Nelly now?" she asked with a smirk.

He didn't respond because he was standing up. "Go, Luke!" he hollered. "Run, boy! Run! Run!"

[*]

Carol was still basking in the compliments over her cooking when she settled onto the couch in the cabin before the roaring fireplace and put up her bare feet on the couch.

"You better rub Mom's feet for her, Dad," Sophia said. "After all that work she did."

Daryl lifted Carol's feet off the couch, sat down on the last cushion, and plopped her feet on his lap. He started to rub, but she jerked them back. "Gentler," she said.

"Sorry."

She eased them back onto his lap again, and, this time, he rubbed more gently.

"You just don't know your own strength," she told him. "That feels good. Thank you."

"I'm going to get Mika to bed," Sophia told them.

Mika came over and hugged Carol and then Daryl – something she'd started doing only recently – and then followed Sophia off to their room.

"Yer…uh…visitor come yet?" Daryl asked.

"No," Carol answered.

"Think ya should take another test?"

"It hasn't been that long, sweetheart. You know I'm not regular. If I haven't had a period by Christmas, _and_ I have symptoms of pregnancy, _then_ I'll take a test."

"A'ight." He wiggled her big toe. "Like yer toes."

"You need to work on your material. _I like your toes_ is not getting you into my pants tonight."

"Nah?" he asked. "What is?"

She sighed. "Honestly? Probably nothing. I'm exhausted."

"Me too. Played hard out there on that field. Don't ya think? Kind of sexy? Turned ya on?"

She chuckled. "Yes, before you got _thrown out of the game_ , you were _very_ sexy."

He ducked his head and smiled. She closed her eyes, happy that Daryl could joke with her like this now, that the awkwardness that used to dance between them was dissolved. She enjoyed the feel of his strong fingers working their way in small, slow circles into the knots in her feet. She didn't remember falling asleep before the fire, or Daryl carrying her to bed.


	106. The Amusement Park

The first week of December, Merle stopped by for a visit and gave Daryl two bottles of bourbon for an early Christmas present. "Damn, man," Daryl said, holding up the bottle of Buffalo Trace. "I wasn't palnning' to get ya shit."

"You never did," Merle told him. "Always went the other way around, didn't it?"

"Hell, when I's a boy, you was in juvie for two Christmases. In the army for two."

"Well, I'm here now," Merle told him. "How's about you at least give me a damn glass?"

Daryl did. They lit the fire pit on his back porch and sat on chairs on either side of it, jackets on, hands a bit cold, sipping and talking. "How's the Mrs.?" Daryl asked.

"Waddling around like a duck," Merle answered. "She might be farther along than we thought."

"When's the princess due?"

" _Prince._ "

Daryl smirked. "God, I hope ya have a girl."

"The _prince_ is due in February. We think."

"Hell ya gonna name it?"

"Merle Junior of course," he said. "Well…Esther wants to name him after her daddy, so, technically, Caleb Merle Junior."

"How can ya name him junior when he ain't a Merle?"

"He _is_ a Merle," Merle insisted. "Just a Caleb _Merle_. We'll call him Cal." Merle told him his Army was dealing with herds coming down from Morgantown toward the Bowling Greene fiefdom in Kentucky. "Got some landmines out there now, so I brought a map of the safe trade routes, in case y'all want to trade with 'em. They have tanker trucks full of diesel and gas. Got a shit ton of fuel stabilizer. Canned food out the ass, but almost no agriculture. Very little hunting. Nothing fresh."

"Hmm. The gas we got in storage ain't gonna be no good come February. All turn bad by then."

"This stabilizer they've got at Bowling Green," Merle told him, "makes the gas last twelve months. The diesel even longer."

"Might go up there then. Work out a deal." Daryl sipped his bourbon and shook his head. "Hell we gonna do when all the gas goes bad?" They had lots of dirt and mountain bikes at the cabins. He supposed they could travel Flinstone-style, but that would make a journey of days instead of hours, and they couldn't haul much.

"Gotta an oil man in my court," Merle assured him. "He's working on the problem. My army secured a refinery. Gonna see if we can get it up and running." Merle poured himself some more bourbon. "Ain't many people left and plenty of shit to scavenge - problem is it's all gonna expire. 'Cept this." He raised his glass and sipped.

"That's why we been farming," Daryl told him.

"Yeah, me too. Well, my Lord of Agriculture, anyhow. You oughtta come see the palace some time. I'll put you up in style."

"Yeah," Daryl said. "Plan to. When my niece is born."

Merle narrowed his eyes. "Your _nephew_."

Daryl swallowed a snort.

Merle stayed in the guest room at the Town Hall and left early the next morning. That evening after dinner, Daryl stopped by Cabin 7. Greg was at the kitchen table, playing Solitaire one handed. Daryl plunked the second bottle of bourbon Merle had given him down on the table.

Greg looked up from the cards on the table. "What's that for?"

"Know what it's for," Daryl told him.

Greg motioned for him to sit down, and Daryl did. "What do you want for it?" Greg asked as he turned over another card. "I don't have much to trade."

"Play ya for it. Five card stud. One round. All or nothin'."

"You're just going to lose on purpose, aren't you?" Greg put a red Jack on a black Queen. "How about I just swallow my pride and take it without the game?"

"A'ight. Fine by me."

"Why do you care so much about me getting laid, anyway? You feel sorry for me?"

Daryl did, but hell if he was going to say that. "Feel blessed," he answered, which was also true. "Damn blessed. Just wanna…Dunno."

"Share the love?"

"I reckon."

Greg nodded to the bottle. "And that's the only way I'm ever going to get any, right?"

"Ya know..." Daryl lay a hand on the tabletop and drummed his fingers. "Think maybe it's good for Janice to have someone to talk to who had a happy family and then lost it all, just like her. She might could use that." He stood. "Goin' on a trade trip to the Village tomorrow. Then onto Bowling Green and back. Ya in?"

"I'm in." Greg flipped a two of spades over and lay it on a three of hearts. "You're not what I expected when I first met you."

"Nah?" Daryl asked.

"You're kind."

Daryl didn't know how to respond to that, so he just headed for the door.

[*]

Carol handed Daryl a travel mug full of coffee and teased, "You're just going now because you know you won't be getting any sex."

Carol was referring to the fact that her period had started. He'd been both relieved and disappointed when she'd told him - disappointed because that meant she wasn't pregnant, but relieved because it meant she could still _become_ so. He took the warm coffee and leaned over and kissed her. "Love ya," he whispered. He gave Sophia and Mika hugs before heading off with Greg, T-Dog, and Roscoe.

Unfortunately, they didn't get much this time. The Village only had two cows that were lactating at the moment, and they feared they would produce less as the weather got colder. Roscoe haggled until the Mayor agreed upon a pound of butter and two gallons of milk, which they planned to trade to Bowling Green, along with the fresh vegetables and smoked bear meat they'd brought, for gas and fuel stabilizer. They were loading up the coolers when Greg rejoined them, an hour earlier than last time.

"Thought you had some good top shelf stuff this time?" T-Dog asked. "Full menu quality."

"I did. Her favorite, actually. In fact, she says I can stay the night. I mean, if y'all don't mind going ahead and picking me up on your way back?"

Daryl slapped Greg on the shoulder of the arm that ended in the stub. "See ya in the morning. Be back by noon."

They followed Merle's map religiously to avoid landmines and unsafe roads. The route involved a lot of narrow side roads, some of them dirt and gravel. In the four-hour journey, they passed maybe fifty straggling walkers before reaching the army checkpoint outside of the Bowling Green fiefdom. T-Dog recognized Colonel Smith, who had been sent to help after the rebel invasion of the cabins, and the Colonel radioed ahead for them so that they would be expected.

The expansive parking lot of the amusement park was surrounded by a barbwire-topped chain link fence that was reinforced at intervals with support pikes. A tall, thin, dark-haired, green-eyed woman armed with an AR-10 asked them for the password to confirm their identity. "Pull up to the stop sign and exit the vehicle," she told them. Then she opened the gate.

The stop sign was next to a booth. When they slid out of the pick-up, the guard introduced herself. "I'm Tony. You'll wait here for the Chieftain." She disappeared inside the booth and got on a radio.

"Hell's a woman named Tony for?" Daryl asked Roscoe while they waited.

She must have overheard, because when she stepped out of the booth, she said, "It's short for Antoinette. But I _am_ gay, if that's what you're wondering."

"You know, we got a lesbian back in our camp," Roscoe told her. "Maybe we'll bring her next time we trade."

Tony lowered her thick lashes over her darkening green eyes. "What do you take me for? I don't trade for sex."

"I didn't mean we wanted to trade _her_!" Roscoe exclaimed. "Just meant, so y'all could meet. Say howdy."

"Mhmhm," she said skeptically.

Daryl surveyed the scene. In the far distance he could see the gates of the amusement park and the silent roller coasters rising above them, standing like fossils of an ancient and forgotten world. An observational tower rose at the east end of the park, and a twinkle of light told Daryl there was likely a guard on the balcony, looking through binoculars or a scope. The amusement park had obviously been closed when the Outbreak hit, because there were no visitors' cars - just a lot of work vehicles and those tanker trunks of gas Merle had told him about.

Tony followed his gaze. "The pumps are dry," she said, "but we still have the tankers. They were parked here when we secured the place. They have go karts and some other things that run on gas inside the park, and of course all the work vehicles, so I guess they needed a service station."

Soon the Chieftain arrived in a golf cart. He was a surprisingly small man, only about 5' 7", and not particularly muscular, but he was hard to look away from, with his fierce blue eyes, long, flowing, thick gray hair, and grizzly, full beard. He wore black, steel tipped cowboy boots, thick, dark jeans, and a flannel shirt. A wooden, Winchester rifle was slung over his shoulder, and when he spoke, his Kentucky accent was pronounced but somewhat genteel.

He introduced himself as Chieftain Raylan Callhoun, "but you can call me Ray." He inspected what they brought, asked if Daryl was " _that_ Daryl? Daryl Dixon? Brother to the King?" and then worked out a deal for the food.

"You don't have to run it by your council?" Daryl asked.

"I _am_ the Council," Ray said. He got on the CB and called some men out, and they all went over to the gas station to make the exchange. The pick-up was emptied of butter, milk, vegetables, and bear meat and loaded with gas and fuel stabilizer. "So I understand from Colonel Smith that you'd like to stay the night?" Ray asked.

"If you don't mind," T-Dog told him. The sun was starting to set. "We've been driving all day."

"We welcome you tonight as our guests. Let me give you a tour of the place."

Daryl had never been inside an amusement park. He'd always wanted to go to one as a boy, but the Dixon had no money for it. So he felt a strange surge of boyish excitement when Ray lead them through a second set of gates at the entrance. A few minutes later, however, a strange, melancholy feeling overtook him as they passed the dusty and rusty shells of the abandoned rides. His sadness was pierced like a thunderclap by the laughter of children. Daryl followed the sound and saw in the distance a gaggle of kids running around a giant play structure with ropes, bridges, nets, climbing tubes, and slides. "Gotta lot of kids here."

"Twenty," Ray told him. "Thirty women. Forty men in our tribe." He motioned to a candy shop they were passing. "The kids are thrilled about these. It's one of _six_ in the park."

A little while later, they passed a First Aid clinic. "That came well stocked," Ray said. "And that's just one of two in the park. We have a paramedic and a doctor in our tribe, fortunately."

Daryl thought it was weird the way the man kept saying _tribe_. What the hell was wrong with _camp_? And what kind of pompous ass called himself a _Chieftain?_ Of course, his own brother was calling himself _King_. Merle wasn't the only one living out his boyhood fantasies in this new world. Hell, in a way, Daryl was living out his, too. He had a woman who called him _husband_ , after all, and a girl who called him _Dad._

Ray pointed to a tree as he passed it. "We have five peach trees in the park, but they aren't bearing fruit at the moment. We have a pond, which does have some fish and frogs and turtles. Those are our only sources of fresh food."

"Little bit of woods in here," Daryl observed. "Y'all could hunt squirrels and birds and such."

"We will if it comes to that. But there's lots of canned and bagged food in the kitchens of the snack shops and restaurants throughout the park. We haven't needed to leave since we settled here."

"You mean you don't go on supply runs?" T-Dog asked.

"Haven't needed too," Ray told him.

"Then how do you pay Merle?" Roscoe wanted to know.

"We've taken in a lot of the refugees his army finds, more than any of the other fiefdoms. And I gave him an upfront cut of of our goods. He's done a good job of keeping the flesh-eaters at bay. We were close to being overrun before he showed up."

"What do y'all do for water?" Daryl asked.

"Bottled water for drinking - there was _lots_ of it in the park. Sodas and juice too. The toilets here still flush. New water doesn't come in, but we refill the tanks with pond water. Six of the bathrooms have started to back-up, so we shut those down and don't go near them, but we still have several bathrooms that are working for now. There's a shallow creek we bathe in. A real creek. Fresh water."

Every family had its own "house" in the amusement park. They were all camping in different shops, offices, and theaters. It all seemed a bit disorganized to Daryl. "Y'all ration?"

"Not yet," Ray said. "People just scavenge in the park's shops and eateries. They find and eat what they want when they want. Those who fish keep or share whatever they catch as they wish. There's no need to _ration_ at this point. I mean, we have plenty. We have ninety people in a park meant to entertain ten thousand people a day."

Daryl didn't think this man was too forward thinking, but he didn't say so. He made a note that fresh water would likely be a major future need of theirs. The cabin fiefdom could load up gallons upon gallons of it from their wells and trade it for gas, candy, or other such treats.

[*]

The men ended up sleeping in the walk-through hunted house, because no one else has laid claim to it as a campsite. They used a propane lantern they'd brought for light and lay on sleeping bags on the floor of the execution chamber, which was filled with dusty wax figures in various states of suffering.

"Notice they left a guard on us?" Roscoe asked as he rolled onto his side and settled his head on his pillow. There was someone pacing around outside with a rifle.

"All these women and kids?" T-Dog asked. "And three rough looking dudes like us? I would too."

"Ain't that many women," Daryl said. "Compared to the men anyhow. Twice as many men." And every woman seemed to be with a man, even that guard Tony, though the man she was camping with might be her brother. They looked alike.

"True," Roscoe agreed. "We are lucky fellows, gentlemen. We better treat our ladies right, because there aren't that many left in this world."

"Heard there's a bunch at the RV fiefdom," T-Dog said, "and only four men who live there permanently."

"Yeah, but those women all got two or three husbands a piece in the Army already," Roscoe told him. "Although...sometimes I think it would be easier on me if Rosita had herself another man. She wears me out."

"You'd be jealous as hell if she had another man," T-Dog replied.

Daryl turned the propane lamp down to a low blue glow.

"Probably," Roscoe answered. "I'd have to challenge him to a duel."

"A duel?" T-Dog asked.

"A piano duel," Roscoe replied, and both men laughed.

Roscoe and T-Dog continued to talk, and their voices lulled Daryl to sleep. They left in the morning after a breakfast of potato chips, pixie sticks, and soda, and picked up Greg at the Village on their way home. He was grinning from ear to ear when he got in the truck.

"Good night?" Roscoe asked.

"Great night," he replied. "But I don't guess we'll be back until spring now?"

"Not if they aren't trading anymore milk," T-Dog replied. "And we should hunker down for winter."

"But, hey, man," Roscoe reassured him, "if you save up your alcohol rations all winter, maybe Janice'll let you stay for a whole weekend."

"She says she's trying to quit drinking," Greg replied.

Roscoe and T-Dog exchanged disbelieving looks, but neither said a word.

Daryl turned on the radio, tuned once through all the static, and then clicked it off. He liked to check every now and then, like a hopeful astronomer searching for signs of life on a distant planet.


	107. Christmas

A few days after their trading trip to the Village, Daryl went "Christmas shopping" in the small, historic downtown they still hadn't entirely looted – at least, they hadn't cleared out all of the clothes and gifts and other non-essentials that would fit well under a Christmas tree. Tara came with him, as did Darlene and Rosita. He listened to the women gossip without commenting. Apparently, they all thought Noah had developed quite the crush on Beth.

"I don't think Noah will make a move as long as she's married to Zach, though," Tara said. "But I wouldn't be surprised if Halley wrecked that marriage."

"You've been dropping snide comments about Halley all day," Darlene told her as they entered the gift shop because Daryl wanted to get some more jewelry for his girls.

"Well," Tara said, "she did use me and then throw me away. Zach better not destroy his marriage for Halley, because she'll do the same thing to him."

"Halley ain't a homewrecker," Daryl said, and then wished he hadn't, because now the women knew he'd been listening in. But Halley was Daryl's hunting partner, and he didn't like to hear her maligned.

"She ever come onto you when you were hunting together?" Tara asked him.

"Hell no!"

Darlene snorted. "It's not like you'd notice if she had."

"Halley isn't going to go after _Zach_ ," Rosita insisted. "Don't you know she's been hooking up with Mike O'Connor?"

Daryl walked away from the gossip and began gathering some necklaces and bracelets into his backpack.

"Really?" Darlene asked. "Well, I guess that's not surprising. They're both hunters. They're less than five years apart. And Mike's a good-looking kid."

"That and he's been chasing her since he got here," Rosita said.

"Well I guess you'll just have to stick with Roscoe then, huh?" Darlene asked with a smirk. "Won't be able to play cougar after all."

"I'm not sure seven and half years difference would have made me a _cougar_ , but, yeah, I suppose I'll stick with Roscoe."

"We've got the term cougar," Tara said, "but what do you call an older man who's with a younger woman?"

"Lucky," Rosita answered.

Daryl examined the pocket knives and picked one for Luke with a buck engraved into the wood. The boy was always talking about getting his first buck. Then he found a key chain for Sophia with her name on it. Well, _sort of_ her name. It said Sofie. "If y'all ladies is done chattin', let's hit the Grills N' Things again."

"I'm sure we've cleared out all the sauces and rubs and propane and coal by now," Darlene said.

"Carol wants some new oven mitts and one of them little George Foreman indoor grills."

"Fine," Darlene replied, "but then let's hit the cigar shop. We haven't cleared all of it, and I need to get my T-baby a few things."

"Record shop after that," Rosita insisted.

As they walked down the street, Daryl casually shot a walker that stumbled, gnashing, out of the fully looted convenience store. There was no thrill in it. He didn't get that little jolt of adrenaline that used to course through his veins whenever he heard a walker's growl. As he recovered his arrow, he wondered if the world would ever be fully free of these creatures, or if they would always exist, and the next generation would just go on killing them as if they were swatting flies. "Need to take Patrick on one of these runs," he muttered aloud.

"Patrick?" Tara asked. "Why _Patrick_?"

"So's he can learn how to live in this world." He'd need to take Sophia too of course. And, eventually, when they were older, Mika and Luke. Maybe one day he'd have to take his own biological son or daughter.

Most of his life, Daryl had never thought past next week. With an abusive father, sometimes all he could think about was surviving the night. But now, as he walked down the abandoned streets of this desolate town, he was thinking years and years down the road.

[*]

On Christmas morning, Daryl awoke tingling with boyish excitement. He was the first one out toe the living room. He wanted to see the girls' faces when they discovered the mountain of gifts beneath the tree, but he was disappointed in Sophia's reaction. She seemed to expect it this time. She said her thank yous, of course, and even gave him one of her rare hugs, but she wasn't _thrilled_ by it. There were no surprised squeals.

Mika was more delighted, and he couldn't help but laugh at the way she tore through the wrapping paper like a shredding machine. He himself had received more presents this year, now that Carol had caught onto just how important holidays were to him. They were completely random gifts - a tool from some shed here, a book on hunting from some cabin there, a stuffed rabbit's foot, a stocking cap, a UNC sweatshirt he might never wear - but he loved opening them all. His favorite was the little Christmas tin of six homemade cookies. He shared one with each of his three girls, ate the fourth, and hid the last two in his underwear drawer for later.

After the papers were collected, Carol and Daryl sat on the couch and drank hot coffee before the fire while Mika and Sophia lounged on the bearskin rug playing one of the board games Daryl had scrounged up for them - Life. He thought of playing Life with Sophia so long ago, in that motel they'd holed up in on the way to the cabins. Back then, she'd said if she ever got married, _she_ wanted to be the _husband_. And if she ended up with Patrick one day, hell, she probably would be.

There was a knock on the front door. Carol let Patrick in. He'd come bearing a gift for Sophia, who also had one for him. She'd given him cooking utensils. He'd given her a little box that contained a ring with her birthstone. Daryl only knew it had her birthstone because she gasped and squealed, "Oooh! My birthstone!" Sophia proudly slid it on her finger, and it promptly slid off.

Patrick coughed into his closed fist. "Sorry," he said. "I didn't think about the size."

"Oh, I can just wear it on a chain!" she exclaimed, and then she took one of the necklaces Daryl himself had given her and slid the heart pendant clear off and put on Patrick's ring instead. "Can you help me clasp it?"

Daryl watched with narrowed eyes as Patrick's clumsy fingers fiddled at the back of Sophia's neck. Carol's warm hand covered Daryl's and squeezed. She smiled at him indulgently.

The necklace now clasped, Patrick slid his fingers away. He formed his hand into a fist and coughed into it again.

"Winter cold?" Carol asked.

"Yes, ma'am," Patrick said. "I think so."

[*]

This year, at the party in the Big Cabin, Carl and Joy got caught under the mistletoe, and then Carl and Olivia, and then Carl and Beth. Daryl was pretty sure Carl was just hanging out under that thing, waiting for pretty girls to come by. If Patrick and Sophia got caught under it, he wasn't there to see it this year. The Christmas party was much bigger this time, too big, and Daryl felt claustrophobic and left early.

When Carol brought Mika home, Daryl was just sitting in the arm chair with his feet up on the coffee table, staring into space. "Read to me, Daryl?" Mika asked.

"Mhmhm." Daryl stood and followed her to the bedroom, wondering if she would ever call him and Carol Mom and Dad. Maybe not. She still remembered her parents, and she'd loved them. Unlike Sophia, she wasn't ready to move on from some bitter memory of her father. After she was tucked in, Daryl returned to the living room and sat down on the couch next to Carol. "Where's Soph?"

Carol put down the book she was reading, one he'd picked up for her for Christmas. "Still at the party. I said she could stay until the movie is over. They plugged a TV and VCR into a generator and the kids are watching _A Christmas Story_. Patrick will drive her home in his golf cart."

"Thought ya said they cain't be alone together?"

"They _aren't_ alone in the Big Cabin. And it's just a short drive home." She put a hand on his knee. "Does it all feel a bit anti-climatic, Pookie? Are you having holiday letdown?"

"Yeah," he admitted.

"Well, I've got another present for you to unwrap. Just give me five minutes and then meet me in the bedroom." She disappeared.

Daryl didn't quite know what to expect when he knocked on the door and Carol told him to come in, but the breath went out of him when he saw the silky, forest green lingerie she was wearing - a lacy teddy that accentuated her breasts and then ended just above a pair of skimpy panties. "Hell ya get that?"

"I did some Christmas shopping of my own, you know."

He was rooted to the floor and couldn't seem to do anything but rake her over with his eyes.

"So are you going to unwrap your Christmas present or not?"

He nodded eagerly and kicked the door shut.

[*]

The sound came as if down a well. A tap, tap, tap and a whisper. The whisper grew louder. Carol was shaken awake. "Soph's at the door," Daryl said. "Wants ya." He put the pillow over his head and went back to sleep.

Sophia wanted her because she'd heard the knocking on the front door first. Glenn was there. "Emergency Council meeting," he said. "Come on. I'll drive you down."

"Mom," Sophia asked nervously as Carol was pulling on her winter coat. "Is everything all right?"

"Just a meeting, sweetheart," Carol assured her. "Go back to sleep. Make sure Mika's asleep."

The stars were still out, but it looked like the sun was going to rise before too long. The golf cart sped down the hill as Carol rubbed the sleep dust from her eyes.

When she walked into the Town Hall, the Council was assembled. The furniture was in a circle, but everyone was just standing behind it, as if they were too nervous to sit. Sasha was missing.

"What is it?" Carol asked anxiously.

Glenn drew toward the center of the anxious circle. "At midnight, Patrick woke Sasha up with his heavy coughing. He was coughing up blood."

Carol's stomach sank.

"Sasha took him to the clinic," Glenn continued. "Dr. S said Sasha was showing some early symptoms herself, so he's quarantined her along with Patrick. Lilly is working with him, but Meghan's been moved to the Big Cabin for now, and Halley's in Cabin 7. Dr. S wanted his cabin cleared out until this thing is under control."

"Early symptoms of what?" Stephen asked.

"He doesn't know," Glenn answered. "Something serious, with TB-like symptoms, that progresses very quickly. Dr. S thinks it's not airborne – that it's probably spread through bodily fluids – blood, saliva, the like. Patrick got a bloody nose yesterday and Sasha helped him clean it up. She may have contracted it then. Dr. S says it's not like anything he's seen before. He and Lilly are treating them with gloves on. And masks, too, just in case. Since you studied disease pathology, he wants you to come in, Stephen, wear a mask and gloves, help them figure out what's going on."

Anthony took a step away from Glenn. "How did you get all this information? Did you talk to Sasha? Did you _touch_ her?"

"No. I talked to Dr. S.." Glenn looked around the circle nervously. "Listen, if anyone starts showing symptoms of heavy cough, Dr. S said to report right away to the clinic. We need to quarantine. We need to stop this thing from spreading. And we need to figure out what the hell it is and how to treat it."

"What if it's the superflu?" Zach asked. "What if it's the disease that started all this? Shit, what if it's _starting_ again?"

"Dr. S treated superflu patients," Glenn replied. "He doesn't think it's superflu."

"Darlene's a nurse," Carol said. "Let's start by sending her house to house to check everyone for symptoms. Anyone who has them should go into quarantine. We need to get a handle on this before it takes over the camp."

The Council sprung into action, and soon the whole camp was awake. Fortunately, no one else appeared to be showing any early symptoms of the disease, but Darlene was planning to do health round inspections every three hours just in case. With masks and gloves, Stephen disappeared into the quarantined cabin to study and offer advice on this new disease.

The camp went about its day anxiously. By evening, the news was that Patrick had gotten worse; his breathing was now more labored. Sasha had begun coughing up blood. Despite her precautions, Lilly may have inadvertently come in contact with Sasha's blood, and Dr. S was worried she would soon come down with the disease. Stephen hadn't figured out what the disease's pathology was, but he felt fairly sure their best bet was to try hammering it with antibiotics. They had some from their many supply runs and cleaning out the cabin's medicine cabinets, and they began a course on all three patients, including Lilly.

"Is Patrick going to be okay?" Sophia asked Carol and Daryl that night through her barely held back tears.

Daryl hugged her close. Over her head, he looked at Carol desperately, as if she could give him the right words to say, but she was speechless.

"Dr. S's a damn good doctor," Daryl told her. "Gonna do everythin' he can."

Sophia pulled away. She covered her mouth and coughed. At first, Carol though she was coughing to cover her tears, but then she began coughing harder.

When she stopped, Carol asked, as calmly as she could manage. "Honey, on Christmas, did you and Patrick…did you kiss? Under that mistletoe in the Big Cabin?"

Sophia looked up at her mother. "Just a little kiss," she said.

"On the cheek?" Carol asked, trying to hide the tremor in her voice. "Or on the lips?"

"Just a _little_ kiss," Sophia insisted.

Carol repeated her question.

"On the lips," Sophia admitted, and Daryl shut his eyes hard and fast.


	108. Grady Memorial

Sophia ended up in quarantine in the clinic. Darlene examined each member of the camp every few hours for symptoms, and declared Karen contaminated and sent her to quarantine. Patrick had been working with her in the greenhouse yesterday. He'd had a nosebleed, and, like Sasha, Karen had helped him with it. Patrick had thought nothing of the occurrence, because he'd had nosebleeds in winter his entire life.

Stephen and Dr. S determined that the disease spread only through contact with bodily fluids (not via air) and that the first symptoms occurred within a mere twelve hours of contact. Patrick was still intermittently coughing up blood, and he had developed a high-grade fever and chills. Sasha had just begun coughing up blood. Lilly, Sophia, and Karen were in the first stages of the disease: cough, low-grade fever, and nosebleeds. The clinic was a heaving, coughing, groaning mess. The antibiotics were not yet improving the state of the sick.

Carol barely slept that night. She didn't think Daryl slept at all. She could hear his pacing in the living room. She came out and told him to come to bed, but he said, "Going on patrol," plucked up his crossbow angrily, and reached for the front door.

"Please," she said. "I need you tonight."

His hand slipped away from the knob. He came to bed and held her in his arms as she cried herself to sleep. She awoke three hours later, when the first hint of dawn struck the window, to find him gone. She sat on the couch, a book in her hand, not reading, until he came through the door. His shirt was splattered with blood and guts. "Where have you been?" she asked.

"In the woods. Killin' walkers. Gonna take a shower."

After he was clean, Darlene stopped by to check them all for symptoms. "I think you're in the clear," she said. "T-Dog's praying something fierce for Sophia."

Daryl fell asleep sitting up in the arm chair, while tightening his bowstrings. Three hours later, he awoke and disappeared restlessly into the forest again.

[*]

By the end of the day, none of the patients were better, and Patrick had become feverishly delirious. Stephen, after being declared symptom free, emerged from the clinic to report to the Council. "We need something stronger," he told them. "The anitbiotics we have are no match for this. Our best bet is the medicines used to treat active TB - Isoniazid, Rifampin, Ethambutol, and Pyrazinamide."

"Where in the hell are we going to get all that?" Zach asked.

"Noah!" Carol replied excitedly, a surge of hope welling up for the first time since Sophia had disappeared into the clinic. "Noah came from that hospital in Atlanta. He said they have lots of drugs if we ever want to attempt an exchange."

"He also said the leaders are draconian," Anthony reminded her. "That they imprisoned him to work off his debt after saving him. I doubt they're just going to hand over their medicines for fresh vegetables."

"We have to at least try!" Carol cried. She hadn't meant to sound so angry and desperate, but her words echoed in the Town Hall.

Anthony ran a hand over the dark stubble that lined his olive cheeks. "Of course," he said sympathetically. "Of course we'll try. And I'll go with the trading team myself. I volunteer."

"We'll get those drugs," Rick said decisively. "And we'll save our people."

[*]

"Daryl, this is risky," Carol insisted as he hastily packed his knapsack. "The roads in that direction aren't secured by the army, and Noah said the leader of this hospital group is dangerous, unpredictable. You _always_ go on these runs and trading trips. Let someone else go this one time. Please."

Daryl dropped his sack on the bed. "Carol, this is my little girl! She might die!"

"I know!" Carol cried, her voice cracking. "Which is why I can't risk losing you, too!"

He pulled her to his chest. His breath was warm and familiar as he spoke. "If I _don't_ go, and Soph dies, I ain't never, ever gonna forgive myself." He pulled back, and with a hand on each of her shoulders, looked her in the eyes. His blue irises shimmered with held-back tears. "Understand?"

Carol sniffled and nodded. She buried her face in his shirt and clung to it with both hands.

[*]

Armed with his crossbow and a handgun, Daryl climbed into one of their two army trucks with Rosita, who had an M16 on one shoulder and a gun belt slung across her chest. Noah, with an AR-15, slid in the backseat. He was clearly nervous, but he had agreed to show them the way to Grady Memorial and identify who they were dealing with there. "Not sure how well they're going to take to seeing me again," he said as Rosita started the truck. "I did steal some things before I ran away."

"'S a'ight," Daryl insisted. "We got firepower. They ain't gonna risk attackin' us." He glanced in the rearview mirror at the other army truck, which Anthony was climbing into with Tara. Anthony was apparently the most capable fighter from the school fiefdom, which was how he had earned his role as President in the first place.

On the way, they stopped at the army checkpoint. General Boone and Abraham paced toward them. "How's Karen?" Boone asked.

"And Sasha?" Abraham echoed. The news had been radioed ahead to them in the field by Rick.

"Not good," Daryl told them. "Gettin' worse. Goin' to that hospital Noah fled, see if we can trade for medicines. Hopin' you'd spare us a man or two and a Humvee."

"I'd go myself," Boone replied, "but I've just received reports of a motorcycle gang north of here heading toward the cabin fiefdom. They tried to rob the RV fiefdom and take the women, but General Wilson's troops repelled them. Now they're coming in our direction, and I have to intercept them before they cause trouble. But I'll give you Abraham and Jacob and a vehicle."

Jacob was a relatively young private in the army of Merle, of average height and build, with a Mediterranean complexion, Grecian nose, and wavy brown hair. He hopped to attention when General Boone called him over and followed Abraham to a Humvee. The caravan moved on. In less than an hour they were beyond the southernmost border of the Kingdom of Merle, in a land unpatrolled and unprotected by the army.

[*]

Rosita followed Noah's directions and turned the army truck down a city block. They rumbled past the grasping arms of hungry walkers in the street. Daryl had almost forgotten the rubble they'd fled in Atlanta all those months ago – abandoned vehicles, burned out and looted buildings, the crispy, decaying shells of bodies, and ash coating the streets like old, fallen snow. He wondered if anyone from G's camp was still alive in that nursing home, if they'd been overrun by walkers, or if the survivors had moved on somewhere else.

Sirens pierced the eerily silent Atlanta air. A police car weaved suddenly around the caravan of three army vehicles, drove up the curb, and sped down the sidewalk, plowing stray walkers as it went, before bouncing back down into the road. It sped forward two blocks and turned sharply down another street.

"The hell?" Daryl asked.

"That's one of their vehicles!" Noah said anxiously from the back seat. "It's headed for the hospital. He's probably radioing ahead that he saw us. The Atlanta cops run that place. They were told to stay behind in a bunker when the city was bombed, to provide order after."

"Order to what?" Rosita asked.

"Whatever was left," Noah answered.

Sure enough, when they reached the hospital, a line of eight police cars, parked horizontally, was blocking their path. Ten uniformed officers stood behind them, guns drawn, just waiting.

"They still wear their _uniforms_?" Daryl asked. "Hell for?"

"They think they're still in charge of the city," Noah said as Rosita pulled to a stop and threw the army truck into park. "They pick up stragglers they find in and around the city, bring them to the hospital. Treat them and then make them labor to run the place, like slaves. They worked us really hard. That's why I left."

Daryl peered through the windshield. "Who's in charge?"

Noah pointed between the front seats. "I think that woman there behind the middle car. She was in charge when I left anyway. Her name's Lieutenant Dawn Lerner."

Rosita switched off the truck. "I'll stay in the back behind the machine gun," she said. "Just in case."

Soon, the representatives of the cabin fiefdom were lined up before the cop cars, hands up, to show their peaceful intent, except for Rosita and the solider, Jacob, who lingered near the machine guns on the Humvee and army truck.

"Hold your fire!" Lt. Lerner warned her men. Then, addressing Anthony, "Who the hell are you people?"

"We come in peace," Anthony replied. "We have fresh winter vegetables in that truck and smoked deer meat. We'd like to offer it to you in exchange for some of your medicines. We have some very sick people in our camp."

"We don't need _food_ ," she replied. "We still have storage food. Our cafeteria runs on generators." She looked Noah over. "Well would you lookie here? The _deserter_. You know, we lost a patient because we were short one orderly."

"I just wanted out on my own," Noah told her nervously. "I'd worked off my debt."

Dawn's stern eyes flitted from Anthony to Daryl to Abraham to Tara. "Well it doesn't look like you're on your own anymore."

Tara stepped forward, her hands up and her rifle shouldered. "Hey, listen, I used to be a cop just like you. I know how you feel. You're trying to maintain order. You're trying to help people. We just want to do the same sort of thing. We just want help our friends."

"Just like me, huh?" Dawn said, tilting her head and looking Tara over disdainfully. "You look a little green, sweetheart."

" _Fresh_ food," Anthony emphasized. "Surely you have to be tired of storage food. I appeal to your sympathy. We have _children_ who are sick."

"I'll tell you what." Dawn tilted her neck and leveled her stern eyes at Noah. "We'll trade you the medicines, but not for food. We'll take Noah for them. He still has a debt to pay, and we need an orderly."

[*]

Carol, holding a six-pack of yellow Gatorade, knocked on the door of Dr. S's cabin. He answered in latex gloves and nodded to the bottles in her hand. "That'll be good for the women and Sophia. But I have Patrick on an IV now. He's not swallowing on his own."

"What's Sophia's condition? Exactly?"

"Her fever spiked at 101, but I brought it down to 99.5. She's having cough and severe nosebleeds. She hasn't started coughing up blood or bleeding from the ears yet."

"Bleeding from the ears!" Carol cried anxiously.

Dr. S looked down at the porch and swallowed. "It's happened to Patrick and Sasha." He looked up to meet her eyes. "Carol, I'm doing everything I can."

She nodded. "I know you are. Tell Sophia we love her."

"I will. Set the Gatorade down on the porch. I don't want to take it straight from your hands, just in case."

She put the bottles on the planks. Dr. S bent down to grab the Gatorade and disappeared inside the cabin. Carol tried to hold herself together as she trudged back up the hill through a faint hint of freshly fallen snow. Had Christmas really been just two days ago? Was this how the New Year would begin, with a loss so deep that it would make moving forward almost impossible? Would they ever truly be at peace here?

The dam holding back her tears broke, and she sat down on the bottom stair of the nearest cabin. Her head was bent when a pair of steel-tipped cowboy boots appeared on the stair above her and then clanked down two more. Roscoe sat down next to her.

"Saw you through the window," he said. "Thought you might could use some company."

Carol heaved. Roscoe sat quietly through her tears, with an arm loose around her shoulder, and then, when she was wiping them away, said, "Listen here. Daryl's one hell of a bad ass. So's my Rosy. And Abraham. They'll come back with those medicines, and your little girl and Patrick and everyone...Everyone's gonna be just fine."

The screen door of the porch creaked open above them. Roscoe's arm slid away. Carol heard the coo of a baby and turned to see Maggie with Gi in her arms. The infant was six months old now. Glenn bragged of her list of accomplishments daily - Gi could roll over, sit up, smile, laugh, and rock on all fours. Her dark brown hair, once whispy thin, had grown beautifully thick and wavy, and her big, brown eyes stared at Carol with confusion. "I'm so sorry, Carol," Maggie said softly. "Come on. Come inside. Let me pour you a drink."

Numbly, Carol let them lead her inside. Samantha Boone was in the living room with Pioneer. She'd come to visit so the babies could play. Maggie plopped Gi down in a bouncy seat, snapped her in, and went to pour Carol some wine. Carol settled into the arm chair and watched as Pioneer, who was now around ten months, crawled steadily over to Gi, plopped down on his butt on the floor before her bouncy seat, and began to play with the toys hanging from her chair, showing her each object and saying, loudly, "Gi!"

"I can't imagine what you're going through, Carol," Samantha told her. "With your child in that clinic. But my husband is a good negotiator." She flashed a warm, bright smile. "I thought he was a bit too old for me, but you should have seen him talk me into marrying him. He can talk his way into or out of anything. Anthony is going to get those medicines."

[*]

"We aren't slavers," Anthony told Lt. Lerner. "We don't trade _people_."

"Well that's the only way you're getting the medicines," Dawn replied, "unless you want to try to plow your way in here, which I wouldn't advise. We have ten armed people lined up behind these cars, a SWAT sniper on the roof, and more armed officers inside the building." Daryl looked up and scanned the roof for signs of a sniper and located him on the eastern edge. "You may have big guns," Dawn continued, "but you only have seven people. I doubt you'll win that exchange."

"I'll go," Noah announced suddenly. "I'll go voluntarily. You can have me for the medicines."

Daryl wanted to tell him no, but he couldn't. The word just wouldn't come out of his mouth. All he could think about was how close they might be to saving his daughter.

"What kind of medications are you looking for?" Dawn asked.

"We have a list," Anthony said. With one hand, he reached for the handwritten list of medicines that was folded up inside his coat pocket.

From behind one of the police cars, a young cop with a blonde buzz cut shouted, "He's reaching for a gun!"

"No!" Dawn shouted as a shot rang out. "Hold your fire!" But her cry was drowned by the second and third shots from the young cop's pistol.

Anthony slumped to the ground. The list of medicines fell from his hand, fluttered up into the air, drifted, and landed on the asphalt.


	109. Coming Home

What unraveled next was an adrenaline-fueled nightmare that would later return to Daryl's memory in bits and pieces.

From behind the machine gun on the Humvee, the solider General Boone had sent with them, Jacob, opened fire on the cop who had shot Anthony down. Then all the cops behind the cars instantly returned fire. Noah stumbled. Clutching his upper left leg, he fell to the ground. Blood spurted out from between his fingers. Abraham was hit, but his flack vest stopped the bullet, and he shot back. Daryl and Tara took cover behind an army truck.

The machine gun fire ceased abruptly as Jacob was struck in the head by the sniper on the roof. The young private's neck snapped back, and he toppled off of the Humvee. Meanwhile, Rosita had gotten behind the wheel of the second army truck, and she now hit the accelerator. The truck lurched forward, slammed into the line of cop cars, and tore a gaping pathway between two of them. The truck also drew the fire of the sniper on the roof, giving the others time to move forward.

Abraham plucked up Noah, slung him over his large shoulder, and ran toward the hospital with his rifle in one hand. Staying low to the ground, Daryl felt for Anthony's pulse. Finding nothing, he left the body behind, snatched up the list of medicines from the asphalt, and followed Abraham toward the hospital. By now, the bodies of all ten officers lay strewn behind the cop cars. Rosita had exited the army truck beneath the protection of the covered walkway, where the sniper could not see them, and was shooting the locked glass doors with her M16. They shattered. Glass rained down all over the ground, and Abraham plunged through the shards. Rosita, reloading her weapon, followed. Daryl ran after her, trailed closely by Tara.

Inside the halls of Grady Memorial, they encountered three more officers with guns drawn. All were quickly taken down. There was no turning back now, no making peace with the cops who were left. Daryl shot one himself with his crossbow. When he yanked out his arrow, and it didn't slide out easily as if from mush, he was suddenly struck with the realization that he'd killed an _actual_ human being. This was not his first time, of course – but perhaps it was the first time that could have been avoided. If only Anthony hadn't reached for that list…if only the cop hadn't confused it for a gun...

Abraham dumped Noah on a gurney. "I'm going for that sniper on the roof before he gets down to us." He ran to the stairs that headed to the roof. His footsteps clanged on the stairwell.

"We've got to stop Noah's bleeding!" Rosita yelled. She seized one end of Noah's gurney and began pushing it toward one of the hospital rooms while Daryl and Tara, swinging to the left and right, scoured the hallways to cover her.

As Rosita was disappearing into one room, Daryl saw a vaguely familiar male face peer out nervously from around the doorway of another room.

"Come out with your hands up!" Tara ordered. "We don't want to kill you."

Hesitantly, the man stepped out of the room with his hands raised above his head. He was clean shaven, and dressed in a white doctor's coat, and it took Daryl a moment to recognize him: Guillermo, G, from the nursing home.

Daryl looked over his white coat. "You're a _doctor_?" he asked. "Thought you was a janitor in the old world?"

"I learned a lot from the nurses and medics in the nursing home by helping them to take care of all the old ones."

Tara looked curiously from G to Daryl.

"How the hell you end up here?" Daryl asked.

"Banditos. They called themselves the Pillagers. They raided the nursing home. Killed the men and old ones. Took the food and women and left. I was shot and left for dead. A black sedan with a white cross on the windshield came and picked me up, took me here. They nursed me back to life and then they put me to work. They worked me hard. I tried to leave once, but they caught me and beat me with batons. "

Daryl motioned with his crossbow to the room where Noah lay. "Well, if yer a doctor now, help my friend."

[*]

Carol stopped by the doctor's cabin again, but she had nothing to bring this time. Dr. S looked haggard when he answered. He reported that Patrick was at death's door, Sasha was a few paces behind him, and Lilly, Karen, and Sophia were all coughing up blood. "I'm doing what I can, but I could use Darlene's help now that Lilly can't assist. Can you ask her to suit up and get in here?"

[*]

Daryl whirled around the corner at the sound of footsteps and leveled his bow. He dropped it and relaxed. An out-of-breath Abraham strode toward him. "I got the sniper finally," he said between draws of air, "and I cleared all the floors above this one. There's no one up there, except the occasional walker." He took a moment to catch his breath and concluded, "I don't think they've been using that section of the hospital. How's the boy?"

"Got someone to patch him up," said Daryl, nodding back to the room where G was working on Noah under the watch of Tara. "Rosita went to get the medicines."

Abraham nodded to an open door. In the room, six people huddled talking. Three were dressed in green scrubs, one in a janitor's outfit, and two in cafeteria worker's uniforms. "And those people?"

"All unarmed. Just told 'em to wait there 'til we know what our plan is."

Rosita rounded the other hallway and approached them. In her hand she held a plastic grocery bag that was stuffed full and tied by the handles at the top. "I got everything on the list," she said, "and some things that weren't."

Abraham nodded to her and took two steps closer in the hallway. "Good work," he said. "You were amazing out there, plowing through those cars like that, making a rescue path. Were you ever U.S. Army?"

Rosita smirked and rested her free hand on her hip. "No, but I had this boyfriend after the Outbreak, an ex-military man, who taught me a thing or two. Let's just say I learned from the best."

"He didn't make it to the cabins with you?" Abraham asked.

Rosita looked Abraham in the eyes. "No. No. He didn't make it. I lost him somewhere along the way, when I wasn't keeping careful enough watch."

Abraham buttoned a loose button on his coat. "Well I for one am deeply impressed with your skill. You were a true soldier out there today. And now you're with a guy like _Roscoe_?"

"Roscoe's a good man," Rosita told him cooly. "Roscoe respects me. He's the kind of guy who, if he ever wanted to move on from me, would let me down _gently_. Hell, he'd probably break up with me in song."

Abraham smiled. "Well, he'd be a fool to break up with a capable, beautiful woman like you."

Daryl cleared his throat because Guillermo had emerged into the hallway with Tara.

"I've gotten the bullet out," G reported, "and I've stitched him up. We can give you a pair of crutches for him, and then you can be on your way." He nodded to Rosita. "I see you've already taken a lot of our medicines. You can use some of those to make sure Noah doesn't get infected. If you would refrain from robbing us of our food, too, we'd appreciate it."

"We ain't here to rob ya," Daryl said. "Just need the medicines. Hell, y'all can come back with us if ya want."

"How many have you got left here?" Tara asked. "Ten people? We can settle you into our last empty cabin behind the fence. It's got three bedrooms and a study, a garage that could be converted into a bedroom, and a sofa bed in the living room. We can give you work."

"Like the Atlanta PD gave us work?" G spat.

"Nah, no, not like that," Daryl said.

"We aren't cruel," Tara told him. "And no one is imprisoned. Anyone can leave whenever they want. Everyone contributes, but no one is overworked. You can ask Noah about it. He'll tell you what we're like. Some of the people here know him, don't they?"

"I'll talk to the others," G said. "See what they want to do."

[*]

Austin, who had taken over the deceased Mateo's old job of maintaining the possum farm, called a problem to the attention of the Council. One of the possums had begun bleeding from its ears and nose. "Patrick helps me feed them," Austin said. "He got bit on the finger feeding one a couple days ago. I didn't think anything of it at the time. He just put a bandaid on it. But now that I've seen this..." He nodded to the cage.

At Carol's urging, the Council voted to kill and burn all of the opossums, even those that did not yet appear infected. It was a lot of meat, and with their last deer having been taken for trade, they'd have to hit the canned food for awhile.

[*]

In the end, the hospital's inhabitants decided that, now that they weren't under the thumb of their police overlords anymore, they wanted to stay at the hospital.

"We still have food here," G said. "Some power in parts of the hospital. Medicine. Other supplies. Two of our three patients are too sick to move anyway. We're staying here. We're ruling ourselves. It's what everyone wants."

"A'ight. Suit yerselves," Daryl told him. "We'll leave ya those fresh vegetables and smoked deer meat we brought, in trade for all the medicines we're taking."

Abraham and Daryl went to fetch the food. When they got back to the army truck, four walkers - all in cop uniforms - were feasting in a small pack on the smoked deer. Daryl and Abraham shot them and dragged them out of the truck with a thud-thud-thud-thud onto the ground below.

"I guess we didn't get them all in the head during the gunfight," Abraham said.

"And I guess G's just gettin' veggies." Daryl paced behind the Humvee and checked to make sure the solider hadn't turned. The sniper's bullet formed a neat hole in Jacob's head, out of which a single stream of blood ran down to his nose and dribbled off over his lip.

Next Daryl went to check Anthony. The man lay on the pavement, unchanged. Daryl craned his neck to look at his face. There was no bullet in his head or anywhere near it. All of the shots were in his chest.

Abraham's deep voice arose from behind him. "Well I'll be damned. He didn't turn."

"Can take a day sometimes."

"But the others have all turned already."

"Some people's immune," Daryl said. "Ain't no one knows why. Let's take his body home. Let his wife bury him with dignity."

Abraham nodded. "But someone better keep watch, in case he turns."

[*]

Carol, too upset about Sophia to think straight, hadn't been able to cook for the camp. Two women from the old school fiefdom did the work. Carol choked down the food, but it seemed flavorless to her. Some of it was the lack of spices they'd used, but some of it, she knew, was her fear for Sophia, Daryl, and the others.

"Is Sophia going to be all right?" Mika asked in a very small voice from across the picnic table in the heated pavilion.

Carol should have been the reassuring mother, but she could only answer dully, "I don't know."

Carter Boone came and put a hand on Mika's shoulder. "Come on," he told her. "Come back with me and Joy to our cabin. We're going to play some games." Mika took her empty tray and stood. "We'll watch over her, ma'am," he assured Carol, who nodded numbly.

Carol ate the rest of her food mechanically as people stopped by to say they were thinking of her, or praying for Sophia, or to offer some other well meant but equally useless words of encouragement. She began to help clear the dishes just to have something to do. She was stepping up the stairs of the Big Cabin to use the large sink inside when Roscoe called through the bullhorn from the watchtower, "They're back! They're back!" She abandoned the tray of dishes on the porch and ran for the nearest RTV to drive to the gate.

When Carol reached the front gate, Rick was sliding it shut behind their two army trucks. Daryl was the first one out. Carol ran to him and flung herself at him in desperate relief, and he encircled her with his arms. "Got the meds," he said.

Rosita exited the truck with a large plastic grocery bag that rattled as if full of pill bottles. She jumped into the RTV Carol had ridden down in and whirred up the mountain toward the clinic. Noah slid out of one of the two army trucks, a bandage around his left leg and a crutch under both arms, and hobbled forward. But Carol didn't step away from her husband's embrace until Abraham and Tara slid a gurney out from the back of the second truck. A white sheet covered what looked to be a dead body.

"Who?" She moved away from Daryl and stared at the sheet.

Tara swallowed hard and looked over Carol's shoulder. Carol turned to see Samantha approaching with Pioneer riding her hip. The boy was playing with her long auburn hair as she walked. Samantha's footsteps slowed when she saw the gurney. Her eyes flitted around the survivors, numbering them one by one. She shook her head. "No," she said. "No, no, no, no, no!"

Before she could break down, Daryl plucked Pioneer from her arms. The boy laughed like he thought they were playing a game, and Samantha ran to the gurney and threw off the sheet to reveal Anthony's dead body. Three holes appeared in the chest of his brown suede jacket, which was wet with dried, black blood.

"Da Da!" Pioneer squealed with delight and pointed to the body. Reaching outward for his father, he tried to squirm free of Daryl's arms, but Daryl held the boy back. "Da da!" he squealed again, but when Samantha threw herself over the body and wept, he asked, "Ma ma?"


	110. A New Year, A New World

That evening, Dr. S immediately put all of his patients on a strong course of medicines. Stephen offered to prepare Anthony's body for burial. With Eugene's help, and the widow's reluctant permission, he quietly took blood, brain, and DNA samples to study in his garage lab before the body was placed in a closed, rough wood casket.

When General Boone returned the next morning after dispensing with the motorcycle gang, Anthony was buried in the community cemetery. During the funeral, the General held his grandson in his arms, who kept calling for his "Da da" over and over, having no sense that Anthony was gone forever. Samantha stared blankly at the grave, while Joy and Carter clung to either side of her and wept. Anthony had been more of a second father to them than a brother-in-law.

Roscoe and Beth sung a hauntingly sweet rendition of "Oh, Danny Boy," and a final fresh shovel of dirt was slung on the grave as General Boone saluted his son-in-law farewell.

The only thing that brought light to the dark morning was the news that the medicines seemed to be working. The patients' symptoms were gradually improving.

[*]

On New Year's Day, Sophia, was declared noncontagious and returned to her own cabin to finish her recovery. Carol now set a cup of hot chocolate on the nightstand between Sophia and Mika's beds.

"I wish I'd been sick," Mika said. "Then I'd get to drink hot chocolate!"

"You do _not_ wish you'd been sick," Sophia replied. " _Trust me_. And my throat still hurts from all that coughing. I need to drink warm liquids nightly to soothe it. Doctor's orders." She sat up against her headboard and reached for the steamy mug.

"Daryl's bringing you some, too, sweetie," Carol assured Mika.

Daryl entered with a cup and handed it to the little girl. Then he sat on the foot of Sophia's bed and put a hand on her ankle. "Glad to have ya back with us, Soph."

"Glad to _be_ back." Sophia blew on the hot chocolate to cool it. "When are they going to let Patrick go back to his cabin?"

"When he doesn't need quite so much attention," Carol answered. "He's still in pretty bad shape." Everyone else had returned to their own cabins.

"Doc says he's ain't contagious, though, now he's been on the meds," Daryl told her. "So when yer feelin' better, ya can go down and visit him."

"I _am_ feeling better. Can I go in the morning?"

Daryl nodded and patted her ankle. "Sure. Drive ya down on my motorcycle."

Sophia looked at Daryl skeptically. "You mean you aren't mad at him for kissing me and making me sick?"

"Reckon you was probably the one who kissed him."

Sophia chuckled. "Maybe."

"Patrick's an a'ight kid," Daryl told her.

Mika and Sophia exchanged surprised looks with each other.

Carol patted Daryl's shoulder. "I guess all it takes is a near-death experience to give your father a little _perspective_ , girls." She smirked at him.

"Stop," he said.

[*]

Later that night, General Boone crested the platform of the tree house watchtower. "I'm here to relieve you," he told Daryl. His breath made heavy clouds in the frigid winter air.

Daryl shoulder his crossbow and fished a cigarette out of his pocket. He wanted to smoke where Carol wouldn't see him doing it. She'd been nagging him to quit. And maybe he wanted to talk, too. "How's Samantha?"

"Still angry with me," Boone answered. "She says I should have sent more of my men to protect Anthony. That I should have gone myself. She says I shouldn't have sent so fresh a private. And she thinks it's unfair that my wife lived and her husband died."

Daryl had never heard him call Karen his _wife_ before, but he let the word slip by unmentioned. He took a drag and the tip of the cigarette glowed red.

Boone sighed and scanned the perimeter through binoculars. He lowered them to his chest. "The good news is, the King has granted my request to retire."

"Retire?" Daryl asked.

General Boone nodded. "Abraham will be promoted. He'll become _Colonel_ Ford. Colonel Smith, who works under the King at the moment, will be promoted to general and given my old duties. He's a good man, an intelligent and capable leader. He's the one who helped here after the invasion."

"Recall him," Daryl said. "Vaguely."

"He'll do a fine job, especially with Abraham as his right hand."

"And Merle's a'ight with that?"

"Well...I radioed the _Queen_ about. I told her now that my son-in-law is dead, I needed to be home for my children and grandchild. Now that she's about to have a baby of her own, I guess that hit a close enough nerve. That, and I'll still be on reserve. If anything big goes down…" General Boone shrugged. "I'll be in the thick of it again. But things are getting quieter out there. Little threats like that motorcycle gang are easy to deal with. The walkers are growing less populous. In time, I think the only real trouble we find will be the trouble we seek. Like at that hospital."

Daryl blew out a stream of smoke over the rail. "One life for five," he said. "Anthony made a sacrifice. Saved Soph, Patrick, Sasha, Lilly, and Karen. Died a hero."

"He died reaching for a goddamn _shopping list_."

Daryl didn't reply.

"It's the sort of tragedy that might have happened in the old world, at a traffic stop." General Boone sighed. "I suppose that's how we'll keep on dying now. In the old ways, for the old reasons. Human stupidity, avarice, and anger." He gazed out at the forest line. "Not because of those gnashing undead things out there."

"Maybe," Daryl said. "But we's gonna go on living, too. For the old, _good_ reasons."

General Boone nodded. "Human love and loyalty. Wives, children, and friends."

"Home," Daryl said decisively.

"Home," General Boone echoed. "Speaking of which, don't you have a woman waiting for you in yours?"

Daryl took that as his cue to get lost. The General obviously needed to be alone with his thoughts. He stubbed out the last of his cigarette on the rail and then flicked it into the dirt below. "Take care," he said and made his way down the ladder and into the bed he shared with Carol.

She squirmed away when he dug his cold toes under her flannel pajamas. "Warm me up, woman. It's yer duty."

She laughed. "Talk of duty will get you nothing, buddy."

"Pretty please? With a cherry on top."

"Put on some socks!"

"You told me my socks stink," he said.

"Well, some clean ones."

He scooted closer and eased his toes under her the edge of her PJ's again. She jerked away and he laughed. "You're like a sixteen-year-old boy sometimes," she told him.

"Mhmhm. Horny as one, too."

She rolled over to face him and gave him that soft, but quick, kiss he'd come to know meant - _I love you, but I'm not giving you any encouragement right now_. "Not tonight, sweetheart."

He turned his eyes up to hers. "Ain't this like...yer window?"

"For fertility, you mean?" He nodded and she said, "I have no idea. I'm so irregular. It's impossible to know."

"Then we should probably do it every day ya ain't bleedin'."

"As charmingly and romantically as you put that, Pookie, I'm going to have to decline tonight. It's 2 AM. You just woke me up. I'm exhausted and I want to go back to sleep."

He kissed her cheek. "Yer loss. Woulda've made ya scream. Twice."

She rolled on her side and snuggled with her bottom against his, murmuring, "I love you" before she plunged back into sleep.

[*]

Patrick finally stopped coughing heavily and was released from the clinic on January 5. The next day, Juan's boys got candy in their shoes for Three Kings Day. Daryl asked Carol what the hell Three Kings Day was, and his eyes lit up to learn there was yet _another_ holiday he could potentially celebrate.

Noah recovered steadily from his wound and "exercised" by taking gentle walks with Beth. Rumors were flying that Beth's marriage to Zach wasn't going to survive their flirtatious banter.

Pioneer took his first hesitant steps, without his father to witness them, but his grandfather saw. The toddler made the move in the town hall, after pulling himself up with the help of a table, in the midst of a mundane Council Meeting, where General Boone now filled Anthony's old seat. Pioneer's grandfather caught him when he fell, scooped him into his lap, and said, "The _future_ , ladies and gentlemen. That's what we're planning for here."

"And speaking of the future," Stephen followed up, "I'd like to report on my research."

"I believe the proper pronoun in that particular instance would be our," Eugene said. " _Our_ research."

"Yes, _our_ research," Stephen clarified. "I've brought Eugene today to help me make this report."

A few eyes rolled in anticipation of some excess verbiage.

"Anthony's blood type was AB negative," Stephen said, "just like the baby and the other adult who didn't turn. I can no longer consider that a mere coincidence, though I still haven't figured out why blood type should correspond with immunity. Then again, nothing about this disease has fit neatly into anything I know. If an AB negative blood type does directly correspond with immunity, however, that means as much as 0.6% of the human population may be immune."

"That's not much," Rick said.

"No," Stephen conceded.

"Did you test the blood samples you took from the walkers on the fence?" Carol asked.

"I couldn't get a blood type on them," Stephen answered. "I guess the transformation makes their blood...not human... Not able to be typed anyway. But I'd like to get a record of everyone's blood type here, if possible. It would be good for Dr. S to have that on file, anyway. We can test it if you don't know."

The Council agreed to collect the information and send those who didn't know for testing.

"And the walker you're keeping in that cabin," Rick asked, "have you learned anything from it?"

"We've been starving it," Stephen answered. "Eugene's done some calculations with regard to that." He nodded to Eugene.

"On a thrice daily basis I've tracked the velocity of the movement of the captive walker and plotted the trajectory on a curve," Eugene said in a monotone fashion. "I then created and applied an algorithm that has enabled me to extrapolate the length of time it would take for the aforementioned creature to arrive at the cessation of - "

"- Could you speak English, please?" Zach interrupted.

"Eugene thinks it takes two and a half years for a walker to starve completely to death," Stephen clarified. "I agree with his conclusion. Those that cannot find food for that long will likely die."

Sasha scoffed. "So all we have to do is make sure they don't eat a single thing in two and half years. Easy, huh?"

"Technically speaking," Eugene said, "It is only necessary to ensure they do not feed for eleven to fourteen months. At that juncture, the decline in the velocity of movement will be such that individuals will be at an extreme disadvantage when it comes to the securing of food sources."

"What he means," Stephen said, "is that they slow down when they haven't fed, and it makes it harder and harder for them to catch food. The human population has declined dramatically, so they're in competition for food. But the animal population is resurfacing. Walkers don't have the speed, agility, or cognizance to truly hunt, but they do feed on stragglers and carrion, so that's keeping many of them alive."

"It is my speculation," Eugene said, "that approximately twenty-eight percent of the entire walker population will starve to death over the next thirty months."

"Add to that the walkers the army has been exterminating," General Boone observed. "And we may be down to half the number of walkers in our area by the time Pioneer is three." Pioneer clapped his hands at the sound of his own name.

"Our children' may have a real future one day," Carol said. "A chance to build a new world."


	111. Don't Get Your Tongue Caught in the Ligh

In mid-January, the cabin fiefdom received word via radio that one of the Village's cows had calved early and had therefore begun lactating. The Village would have more milk than they had anticipated - _if_ they could keep the cows warm through winter. They wanted a solar heater for their barn, and, in exchange, they would promise thirty gallons of milk and six pounds of butter to the cabins over the next four months.

There was not yet much snow on the mountain, so Roscoe, T-Dog, and Greg headed off. Carol talked Daryl out of going. He was easy to convince, because, after almost losing Sophia, he wanted to be home with his girls. He also wanted to teach little Luke how to wait patiently for a deer by a pile of bait.

Luke - with Daryl's help - bagged his first ever buck. Using his .22 rifle, which Daryl had outfitted with a youth stock, Luke managed to get two bullets in its hide, though it was Daryl who finished it off with arrows. They were salting the slabs of deer meat to hang in the smokehouse when the trade team returned from the Village and Greg called Daryl aside privately.

Daryl, breathing in the pleasant, oak-like scent that wafted through the cold winter air, walked with him to the side of the smokehouse.

"Those medicines you picked up at the hospital…" Greg asked him. "I know you got some extra stuff. You didn't happen to get any antabuse, did you?"

"That shit that makes you real sick when ya drink? Why?"

"Well, I visited Janice while I was at the Village," Greg said, "and we talked, and…she _really_ wants to quit drinking. And maybe if she _quits_ drinking, she won't feel the need to…you know…to do…what she does…to get the alcohol."

"Mhmhm. Well, check with Dr. S. I ain't got no idea what pills we got."

Greg shrugged. "Of course, if she _does_ stop drinking, and she doesn't do that for alcohol anymore…maybe she won't want to do it with me anymore either."

"Fuck, man, just ask her to marry ya and move _here_! 'S what ya want. Worse she can do is say _no_."

Greg chewed on his bottom lip. "I think she may _actually_ like me," Greg said, "but how can I know she's not just pretending because...you know, it's her job?"

"Know by askin'," Daryl said.

"I guess you've always been bold around women, huh?"

"Uh...Well..." Daryl glanced at Carol in the distance, who was cleaning down the butcher's table of blood and deer guts. "Nah," he admitted. "But, shit man, sometimes ya gotta take the bull by the horns."

"Well, I don't know about that," Greg said, "but thanks for the pep talk."

[*]

The first week of February, Little Ass Kicker, as Daryl called Gi, started crawling like a high-speed, wind-up toy. She was a constant terror to Glenn, who was forever plucking her away from the light sockets in the walls, until Roscoe pointed out to him that there was no power in those sockets. "That's why we've got the portable generators, Einstein," Roscoe said with a shake of his head.

"Well, I still don't want Gi getting her tongue caught in it!" Glenn said defensively, and everyone who overheard laughed.

Around the camp, "Don't get your tongue caught in the light socket!" became the new way of saying, "Don't be stupid."

While Abraham was on his week-long furlough at the cabins, he began flirting with Rosita, whose gumption he had admired on the run to the hospital. Daryl saw it happen once and, feeling defensive on Roscoe's behalf, privately told Abraham he better "cut that shit out."

"I can't help it," Abraham replied. "I'm having these flashes of memories in dreams at night - and Rosita's _in_ them - and they're beautiful, sensual memories."

"What about Sasha?" Daryl asked him. "Ain't you got memories of her from _last night?_ Don't get yer tongue caught in the light socket!"

Daryl's warning aside, Abraham did get his "tongue caught in the light socket." He broke up with Sasha to pursue Rosita, telling Sasha, "I thought I had to be with you because everyone _told_ me we were together, but now I know you weren't the only woman in my world."

He then told Rosita that he was free, and they could be together again. "We were obviously _meant_ to be together," he said. They were both determined fighters, soldiers in a new world, virile lovers who had joined together in the past.

"I'm with Roscoe now, you idiot," Rosita told him and strutted away.

That night, Abraham slept on the couch of the Big Cabin, because Sasha didn't want him anywhere near her. The next morning, he returned to the field, muttering about the unpredictability of women and how it was better to be married to his mission anyway.

[*]

At dinner, Carol, Daryl, Rosita, Roscoe, Rick, Michonne, and Sasha shared a table. At the next table over, Patrick and Sophia laughed together while Carter and Carl both tried to impress Olivia and Mika and Meghan told knock-knock jokes to each other.

"Stop looking at me!" Sasha exclaimed in exasperation.

"Just, worried 'bout you," Roscoe said. "You had a rough day."

Sasha looked over the table at Rosita. "Now I know how it felt. I'm sorry."

"No, you _don't_ know how it felt," she said, more matter-of-factly than angrily. "When he dumped you for me, I didn't get together with him."

Roscoe glanced at Rosita and then back at his food, smiling just a little.

"Well, consider that I did you a favor in the long run, then," said Sasha, nodding to Roscoe.

Roscoe plucked up his glass of water. "You had your chance with me, Sasha, darlin'."

Rostia jerked her head in his direction and narrowed her eyes. Then she looked a little suspiciously at Sasha. "Well," she said to Sasha. "Now you've got half the military to choose from."

"Maybe I should go on the next trade run to the village." Sasha stabbed at her food with her fork. "See the sights."

"I wouldn't," Rosita said. "I bet those men all have STDs from the brothel."

"There's a brothel in the village?" Rick asked with surprise.

"I thought everyone knew that," Rosita said.

"Huh."

"Why is this of any note to you?" Michonne wanted to know.

Rick shrugged. "Just, I didn't expect a _brothel_ in this world."

"Because men take what they want?" Michonne asked.

"Well..." Rick looked at her warily. He seemed unsure what the acceptable answer to that question might be. "Yes. But I suppose not in the Kingdom of Merle. Not in this civilized corner of the world." He shook his head. "I never thought I'd say Merle and civilized in the same breath."

"I always though Merle would end up runnin' a whore house," Roscoe said.

"He don't run it," Daryl replied.

"I know. He runs the whole damn country it's in." Roscoe pointed his fork at Daryl. " _That_ , I did not see coming."

[*]

"Abraham's a good soldier, but he's a damn idiot 'bout women," Daryl told Carol that night, as she lounged against his chest and they sat with their bare feet up on the coffee table, their flesh warmed by the flames of the fireplace.

Carol chuckled and kissed his cheek. She loved this quiet evening time with him, after the girls' were in bed, on those nights when neither of them had watch. "I think you're beginning to see yourself as a relationship guru."

"Me? Hell no! Ain't got to be no guru to see ya don't chuck off a perfectly good woman for some other just-as-good woman. He was a dumb ass when he dumped Rosita, and he was a dumb ass when he dumped Sasha. Now he ain't got no woman."

"I guess this means you won't be dumping me anytime soon?"

"Stop."

"It is surprising he did it without knowing whether or not Rosita would take him, though," Carol observed. "I guess he's just that confident."

Daryl sipped his tea. "Oughtta loan some of that confidence to Greg."

They talked about Greg and Janice for a bit, and the likelihood of that turning out the way Greg wanted. Daryl thought it might, Carol thought it couldn't possibly. "She's a _prostitute_."

"Ya judgin' her?"

"Well…yes. The woman sells her body for sex, so, yes, I reserve the right to judge her. Just a little bit."

"Think maybe she's just broken," Daryl said. "Like you and I was, 'fore we had each other."

Carol smiled tenderly. She brushed a strand of hair from his forehead. "Remind me to cut that for you tomorrow. It's getting long."

He was quiet for a moment. He looked away and then looked back. "No….uh….visitor yet?"

"My period? No. It still hasn't started. But unless and until I have symptoms - tiredness, nausea, something - I'm not taking another test."

He nodded.

She took his empty tea cup from his hand, but then she just set it on the coffee table. "Could you wash those? I'm so tired."

He smiled. "Tired, huh?"

"Because it's _midnight_."

He watched her disappear into their bedroom before rinsing out the cups and dampening the fire.

They only had one solar heater – they'd given Roscoe the other to trade to the Village – so they left it in the girls' room, and they themselves slept under two thick comforters and curled together for warmth. But half way through the night, Carol tossed all the covers off. Daryl woke up shivering and yanked them up from the floor. He draped them over them both, but Carol shucked hers off again.

"Damn, woman," he said. "'S cold!"

"I'm hot."

"Hell ya hot for?"

Carol didn't want to explain to him why she was probably hot. She didn't want to crush his hopes. So she just pulled the light sheet up to her neck, murmured goodnight, and rolled on her side.

[*]

On February 7, Patrick celebrated his sixteenth birthday. Sophia, who had turned fourteen back in December, invited him to their cabin after dinner that evening, made him a single cupcake, and planted a candle in it.

"What did you wish for?" she asked when he blew it out, and Patrick grinned such a mischievous grin that Daryl shot him a stern look, and the young man's grin instantly faded.

Two days later, Joy Boone had her thirteenth birthday and began calling Carl Grimes her boyfriend. "He was not aware of the fact," Rick told Daryl while they were repairing a loose plank in the fence. "But he's accepting the announcement well enough, especially since Olivia clearly prefers Carter now."

Daryl removed the nail he was holding between his teeth and positioned it. "Yeah? How's General Boone acceptin' the announcement?"

"Warily," Rick admitted as he held the plank in place while Daryl pounded in the nail.

"Ain't these damn kids got nothin' better to do than chase each other?"

"We should give them more work," Rick agreed. He turned. "Hey! Carter!" he shouted to Boone's boy, who was doing jumps on his bicycle off a ramp in the dirt road. "Get over and help us fix this plank!"

[*]

Daryl slid the binoculars around his neck. Before leaving the watchtower, Roscoe leaned back against the rail. "Glad Abraham is gone for five more weeks. I was about to kick his ass, you know."

"Mhmhm." Daryl murmured skeptically as he lit up a cigarette. The sun was just beginning to set behind the bare trees in the distance.

"The way he kept flirting with Rosy…" Roscoe shook his head. "I wasn't going to tolerate that much longer."

Daryl blew out his smoke and tried not to laugh, but he did, in a choked cough.

Roscoe glowered. "Fine, you're right." He pushed himself away from the rail. "I wasn't about to do a damn thing. Because I'm a pussy."

"Ain't no one said you was a pussy."

"I _am_ though. I'm surprised Rosy didn't just take him back."

"Hell would she?" Daryl asked. "Way he ditched her?"

"Yeah, but they're more compatible than me and her are. More alike. Couple of bad asses. I'm a goddamn _music man_." Roscoe sighed.

"Shit, man, ain't no pussy survives this damn long in an apocalypse! And you and Carol, y'all both fought your way out that van."

"I don't _like_ it though. The fightin'."

"Ain't nobody _likes_ it," Daryl told him.

"I think Abraham does. Think Rosy does. Damn well _know_ Merle does. But me…" Roscoe shrugged.

"Yeah, well, opposites attract, right? Ain't that the sayin'? Me and Carol ain't nothin' alike."

"I always thought you were a lot alike." Roscoe took off his cowboy hat and toyed with it, popping the top down and then up again. "She won't marry me you know, Rosy. Won't _say_ we're married."

"Hell difference does that make here?" Daryl asked him.

"Not much I reckon. Don't guess it made much difference in the old world, either. I guess I just feel like it's only a matter of time with Rosy. I ain't no spring chicken."

"Abraham weren't no spring chicken neither."

"You've got a point there."

"Hell you jabberin' at me for anyhow?" Daryl said. "Go home, fuck yer girl, and you'll feel better."

"Suppose I will." Roscoe slid his hat back on his head, shimmied down the ladder, landed on the frosty ground, and walked off whistling.


	112. Valentine's Day

Because a severe winter freeze had prevented the growth of any crops in the farm land, and they had only the fresh vegetables in the green house to rely upon, the Council held a meeting to discuss a new rationing plan and future needs.

They were going to plant the germinated seeds of the fruit trees after the thaw, and Janet brought up the issue of irrigation for the plots.

General Boone rubbed the goatee he'd been growing. "We need to redirect the stream. The RV fiefdom has a water engineer. He's been laying irrigation and even directed the digging of a well there."

"Is he the toothless guy?" Zach asked. "That all the women worship?"

"No," General Boone answered. "He's one of the only other three men living there. Maybe we can trade them batteries in exchange for his expertise. They've planted vegetables, have a greenhouse of sorts, and hunt for meat, but they have no electricity."

"What do they do for sanitation?" Roy asked.

"Port-a-potties," General Boone answered.

Roy crossed his arms over his chest. "I ask because we're about to have a waste management situation. The toilets have been working so far. The sewage is transplanted away from the cabins, and our drinking water supply is separate. But that treatment plant is not actually operating, so eventually, the sewage is going to back up and we're going to have a sanitation crisis on our hands. We need to _stop_ using the toilets before that happens. Outhouses only."

"Two outhouses is not enough for this entire camp," Carol said. They had two, old-fashioned wooden outhouses that had probably been in place before some of the cabins had plumbing. "We need to build a few more."

A team was assigned to construct more outhouses, and then Glenn said, "There was a radio report from the Parthenon this morning. King Merle's engineers think they can get that refinery up and running within twelve to sixteen months. We'll be able to trade for oil and gas then. But there may be a two or three month period when we can't get anywhere, after the last of the gas goes bad and before that new gas is available."

"Well, we have bicycles," Sasha said. "If we really need to travel. And the Village has horse and buggy."

"The Royal Court has some horses as well," Janet observed.

"The RV fiefdom has two horses also," General Boone said. "They have a real-life cowboy living there."

"The toothless guy?" Zach asked.

"No. One of the other three men."

Zach shook his head. "Why do they worship the toothless guy when they could be worshiping a water engineer or a cowboy?"

"He's a charismatic personality. And an amazing fighter. He saved them all from walkers and secured the camp."

"Anyway," Glenn said, "We better do a lot of scavenging in the spring and summer so we're ready to hunker down when the gas turns."

"The military won't be able to travel around to clear herds and defend us in that time period between when the gas turns and the refinery is operational," General Boone observed. "So we'll need to beef up our own defenses when that happens."

Stephen was asked for a report on his research. "I tested everyone's blood type who didn't already know theirs. It's the AB negative that interests me. Gi has it."

"That means she's immune?" Glenn asked excitedly.

"I don't know. I can't say that with certainty. But maybe. Pioneer has AB negative blood, too. So do you, Roy. Those are the only three people in the camp with AB negative blood type. Now, Carol, you have A negative, and Daryl has B negative, so, if, hypothetically, you were to have a child…it would be AB negative."

Carol unthinkingly hugged herself. Everything seemed directed at making her want a child lately, just when she was least likely to be able to have one.

"What about me and Michonne?" Rick asked.

Stephen shook his head. "You have O and she has B. Can't happen."

Rick's shoulders fell.

"You and Karen could produce an AB negative child," Stephen told General Boone.

"Are you suggesting we breed?"

Stephen laughed. "I'm not suggesting anything." He turned to Zach. "You and Beth couldn't, unfortunately. You're both type A."

"Doesn't matter," Zach said a little bitterly. "Beth doesn't want kids like I do."

"Like I said, I don't even know if my theory is correct here. The blood type could just be a coincidence, but, if so, it's an amazing one. Now, I've been studying a bit of Anthony's brain under a microscope."

General Boone swallowed and paced away, his back to the group.

"Sorry," Stephen muttered. He glanced at Boone warily and continued, "Anyway, I didn't note anything unusual, but I don't have a lot of tools either, and it wasn't living brain tissue."

"Does anyone else have anything to discuss or report?" Carol asked.

General Boone turned back to the group. "I do. I'll be gone for a couple of weeks starting this afternoon. The King radioed just before this meeting. He's called me out of retirement, temporarily. Trouble at the Bowling Green fiefdom."

Carol wasn't particularly surprised. Daryl had described the place as being disorganized, a loose and benign dictatorship with no clear rules, no rationing, and no wells for water.

"Internal revolt," General Boone explained. "A violent coup within the fiefdom. Part of the army is already there and has put the insurrection down, but King Merle wants me to go as a military diplomat and restore order."

"Were there many deaths?" Carol asked.

"The Chieftain was murdered in his sleep," Boone said. "Then a band of fifteen insurgents, all men, took control of the camp. They raped some of the women."

Sasha's jaw set tight and her fists clenched. Carol felt something similar happening in her gut.

"Some of the women and some of their husbands tried to fight back," General Boone continued, "but they were shot. Fourteen killed. A ten-year-old boy was able to sneak off unobserved and radioed the news to the army checkpoint. When the army arrived, they killed eleven of the insurgents in the fighting. The other four surrendered and are awaiting trial in the King's court. They'll likely be executed for rape and murder."

"And so Merle …what?" Carol asked. "Wants you to pick a leader from among them?"

"He wants me to leave the selection of a new leader up to the surviving camp… _technically_. But he wants me to interview people, make an assessment of them, direct the voting process, and subtly guide the camp toward the choice of a competent leader who is favorable to him. Then he wants me to help them institute a charter and a rationing plan, along the lines of our fiefdom or the Village fiefdom, to provide some insurance against future problems."

"So you're setting up a puppet government?" Carol asked.

"Not exactly," General Boone replied. "If you're worried King Merle will try to meddle in _our_ internal affairs, I wouldn't. It's really a lot of trouble for him. He's only doing this because of the insurrection. Believe it or not, he's trying to _help_. The Bowling Green fiefdom has supplied several loyal soldiers to his army. He appreciates their loyalty and service and wants to assist their people."

After a few more items of business, the Council meeting wrapped up.

[*]

"Hot flashes," Dr. S confirmed.

Carol slid off the table in the garage clinic and sighed. "So my chances of pregnancy at this point…" She couldn't even bring herself to ask.

"- Very slim. But not impossible. Until you've gone without a period for twelve months, I wouldn't rule it out. For some women, perimenopause can last _years_. Pregnancy has been known to happen, but I certainly wouldn't count on it."

"Thank you, doctor." As Carol left the garage, she passed Maggie, who held Gi in her arms. Gi was pointing to the trees and sun and making semi-word-like sounds.

"Taking her in for her eight month check-up," Maggie said. "She pulled herself up today on the coffee table. I'm sure Glenn's already told everyone."

Carol smiled. "I might have heard." She put her finger out to Gi, who grabbed a hold of it, shook it, and laughed. Her gut cinched with jealously.

[*]

When Carol popped into the green house for some garlic, Karen was pressing soil down around a plant. They exchanged some pleasantries, and Karen asked, "Are you and Daryl doing anything special for Valentine's Day?"

"Well, I've been keeping aside some new lingerie for him," Carol said with a smile. "But otherwise, I don't think so. He probably doesn't even know it's Valentine's Day."

"I wish James were home." Karen dusted the dirt off her hands. "Or that I could at least hear his voice on the radio." To communicate from Bowling Green, General Boone had to radio to the Village checkpoint, and then they relayed his messages to the Cabin checkpoint, and then the soldiers at the cabin checkpoint relayed it to the cabins. "But he sent me a nice Valentine's telegram.""

"How are things going at Bowling Green?" Carol asked. "Or did General Boone say?"

"He just said things are progressing, but he might not be back until March. He also said some of the kids are showing early symptoms of scurvy at the Bowling Green fiefdom. He'd like the Council to consider trading Vitamin C supplements, canned fruits, and canned vegetables with them. They can give us sodas and sweets and various odds and ends – battery operated handheld fans, flashlights, toys, kids' clothing of any size, that sort of thing. Our kids have plenty of healthy food here, but few treats. Their kids have been mostly living on candy and chips."

"I'll bring it up," Carol assured her before slipping from the greenhouse.

[*]

Daryl didn't forget it was Valentine's Day, but mainly because Glenn mentioned something about it. After his watch, he went to the Big Cabin and once again asked Michonne to illustrate a nice card. While she was drawing for him on the coffee table, he could hear the sounds of Zach and Beth arguing in the master bedroom.

"They always fight like that?" he asked.

"On and off," Michonne said. "For the past two months or so. If they get too loud, I remind them we have kids in the house."

"They _are_ kids," Rick said and turned the page of the book he was reading.

"Well, Beth is anyway," Michonne said. "I think Zach's really matured, though. But he's still young when it comes to relationships."

"Hell," Daryl said, "so am I."

Michonne chuckled. "You and Carol seem to be doing all right."

He took the card Michonne handed him, but, this time, he didn't have to ask her what to write.

[*]

Carol was awake when he brought his card this time. In fact, she was waiting up for him in a skimpy, bright red number that was covered in tiny little ties all the way down the front of the shirt and on either side of the panties.

Those ties delighted him more than she had expected. He took his sweet time sensually pulling them loose, with such a raw look of hunger in his eyes that it made her tingle all over. It didn't help that he nibbled, kissed, and licked every spot of bare skin that was revealed as each tie was loosened. She could feel her silky panties growing wet with each torturous exploration. When the cool air was caressing her exposed breasts, and Daryl had nibbled a trail to the top of her panties and wrapped his finger around the end of one of the strings that held them together, Carol couldn't stand it any longer. "Stop being such a tease and just fuck me!"

He yanked the tie loose roughly and then did the same thing to the second before flipping her onto her stomach. He peeled off her panties quickly and then freed himself from his boxers while using a knee to push open her legs. "Whatever ya want, girl."

[*]

Carol rolled onto her side and curled herself around Daryl. Both were still shuddering slightly.

"Damn," he breathed. " _Goddamn_."

She laughed. "I liked it too."

"Sounded like."

"I tried to bury that last cry in the pillow."

"Ain't no pillow big enough. Think Soph and Meek's sound asleep, though."

She lazily traced his rib cage with the tip of one finger and was nodding off when he said, "Ain't it time for a test? Been awhile since yer...uh...visitor left."

"I feel bad wasting tests, Daryl. I have to sign them out from the clinic. But I'll take one in March if I still haven't had my period."

"Good." Daryl sighed contentedly and bent his head. She knew this meant he wanted her to run her fingers through his hair, so she did, until he fell asleep.

[*]

Daryl slipped cautiously into the garage clinic. The door was open, as there were no patients, and Dr. S was reorganizing medicines in a small fridge plugged into a portable generator. "Hey," he said.

Dr. S stood up from his crouched position. "Hello, Daryl. Can I help you with something?"

Daryl rubbed the back of his neck. He'd come to ask for the pregnancy test Carol wouldn't ask for. He figured she was just shy to ask. But he didn't much like asking either. "Greg talk to you 'bout that antabuse stuff?"

"Yes. I had it. He signed it out before he left for Bowling Green." Greg, T-Dog, and Roscoe had taken the canned vegetables and Vitamin C for trade. They would be stopping overnight in the Village fiefdom both ways, mostly to give Greg a chance to see Janice, but also because Roscoe wanted to play for the Villagers. "I hope it works for that woman."

"Yeah. Yeah. Me too."

There was an awkward silence. Dr. S smiled. "Anything else I can help you with?"

"Uh…was wonderin'…can I check out a pregnancy test?"

"For Carol?"

Daryl looked away and nodded.

Dr. S went to a cabinet and opened it. "So you're still trying?"

"Any reason we shouldn't be?"

Dr. S put the test on a counter and checked off something on a clipboard. "Like I told Carol, it happens, sometimes, that women get pregnant during periomenopause. But it's rare. Especially after the hot flashes have started."

"Hot flashes?"

"She hasn't mentioned them?"

"Uh..yeah. The hot flashes. That mean she cain't get pregnant?"

"She _could_." He handed Daryl the test. He took it and slid it into an inside pocket in his leather jacket. "I just think you should both prepare yourself for the unlikelihood of this happening. But, hey, you have two girls already, right? And Luke follows you like a puppy. I can't believe that boy is already hunting."

"Mhmh. Yeah." Daryl ducked his head and scurried from the garage. He left the test in Carol's top dresser drawer, on top of her underwear.


	113. Pilgrimage to See the Prince

Samantha helped Carol set the table in the dining pavilion. Both space heaters were on at full temperature now, as four inches of snow coated the ground outside and it was still falling. Pioneer stood at one of the picnic benches, drumming against the wood and humming. He toddled to the bench across from it, caught himself on it, and began drumming again.

Carol smiled and felt a pang of longing as she watched the tyke. This afternoon she'd secretly used that pregnancy test Daryl had not-so-subtly left in her dresser drawer a few days ago. She looked at it every time she pulled open the drawer, and eventually, she gave into the temptation to know, despite her lack of symptoms. The test, of course, was negative. She cursed herself for wasting it. "He's adorable," she said.

Samantha set down the last fork in her hand and looked at her son. "He looks so very much like his father. That olive skin, those eyes. Part of me is glad he does, because it's a reminder, and part of me hates it, because every time I look at him..." She breathed in and then covered her mouth.

Carol came over and gave her a sympathetic hug, but then quickly stepped away to give her space again. Pioneer toddled down the aisle between two rows of picnic benches fell to the ground, crawled over to a bench, and pulled himself up again.

Samantha dropped her hand from her mouth. "I feel bad for the way I lashed out at my father when it happened. It's a cruel world. I know it was no one's fault."

"I'm sure he understands," Carol told her softly.

The tarp of the curtain parted and Zach came inside. "Oh," he said, looking at the two women. "I thought maybe Beth was in here helping. I can't find her."

"I think she and Noah are cleaning up the school house," Samantha said. "Washing down the boards and dusting up."

Pioneer toddled toward Zach in a lunging walk-run and Zach scooped him up. "Hey there, buddy," he said.

"Za-keeee!" Pioneer squealed. And then, sternly. "Down!"

"He's really talking now, isn't he?" Zach asked, setting the boy on his feet. "Smart kid. I didn't know they talked that young. What is he?"

"Eleven months," Samantha said.

"Well, let me know when you want me to teach him to shoot."

She smiled. "Probably not at one."

Zach chuckled. "Yeah, I know, but...we should start on gun safety at least when he turns two. Stop, don't touch, leave the area, tell an adult, that sort of thing. Well, see y'all." He ducked out of the tent.

"Nice guy," Samantha said. "A little young to be on the Council though, huh?"

"Only four years younger than you," Carol said.

"Well, I'm not on the Council."

"He does a good job," Carol assured her as she finished setting the table.

[*]

That night in bed, Daryl said, "Saw the box in the trash. From that test. Ya take it?"

"Yes. It was negative."

"Oh." He was quiet for a while. "Why didn't you take it with me?"

"I couldn't stand you pacing, waiting, _hoping_." She rolled away from him and attempt to hide her fear and unease.

He rolled toward her and draped an arm over her waist. He was quiet for a long time, and then he whispered, "I love ya, Carol."

She closed her eyes tightly and tried not to cry at those few words, so rarely spoken, so tinged with quiet disappointment and gentle reassurance.

[*]

The next night, word came down through the relay radio system that "the heir, Prince Caleb Merle Junior" had been born. Daryl felt a surge of petty jealously. Merle had not only produced a child, but a boy, exactly as he'd wanted.

"Guess I better go pay homage to the _Prince_ tomorrow mornin'," Daryl told Carol as he kicked his way into bed under the two thick comforters. "See this damn palace Merle's been wantin' to show off."

Carol curled up against his side and lay her head on his shoulder. Her voice was small and sad. "I don't think I can give you a prince, Daryl. I'm sorry."

"Already given me the world." He bent his head and kissed her softly. "Got my girls. Got my little apprentice." That's what he'd started calling Luke. "Got this cabin. Got this camp. Don't need a damn thing else."

"But you _want_ it."

"Want you." He rolled on his side and cupped a breast through her thick flannel pajama top. He nibbled her ear and whispered into it, "Want ya damn bad, woman."

They made love earnestly but wordlessly and fell asleep soon afterward, naked but warm beneath the heavy weight of the comforters.

[*]

"You sure you don't want us to go with you?" Carol asked as she handed Daryl a travel mug.

"Don't wanna go. Ya hate Merle."

"But that baby is my nephew, too. And Sophia and Mika's cousin."

Daryl nodded. "And y'll meet your nephew, eventually. In the summer. But I don't like the idea of Soph and Meek travelin' so far in winter. Safer here." And maybe he didn't want Carol to see the jealousy that would creep across his face when he looked at his brother's newborn. "Won't stay long. Be home soon." He kissed her softly.

"At least take _someone_ ," she whispered. "I don't like the idea of you on the road alone."

[*]

Greg tugged on one of the chains Daryl had applied to the tires of the pick-up. "They're good. You won't need them once you get down the mountain, though. I'd take them off when you hit the asphalt. But they should keep your drive down from become a sledding expedition."

"Thanks, man," Daryl told him. "How's Janice?"

Greg stood straight. "She started using the antabuse. And she'd gone twenty-four hours without a drink by the time I left the Village."

"'S good, right?"

He nodded. "And I…uh…I did what you said. I just up and asked her to move here with me. To be with just me."

"Yeah?"

"She said uh…she said she'd _think_ about it."

"Well that's good, right?" Daryl asked.

"Think she just didn't want to hurt my feelings."

"Maybe she just wants to get sober first."

"Maybe," Greg said. He slapped the hood of the pick-up with his intact hand. "Well, have a safe trip." Greg's boots left dirty foot prints in the snow as he walked away. He waved to Roscoe as they passed one another.

Roscoe threw his guitar in the bed of the pick-up and then tossed his pack in after it. "I feel like a magi," he told Daryl as they climbed into the cab of the truck.

"The baby ain't Jesus." Daryl started the truck. It cranked a bit in the cold before it whirred steadily. "And Merle sure as hell ain't God."

[*]

Carol had just finished organizing their private pantry and figuring out how to allot the rations for the rest of the week when there was a light knock at the cabin door. She found little Luke standing there, his curly hair dusted with snow, the hunting knife Daryl had given him strapped to his side, a little too big for his belt. "Hi," he said. "It's Friday. No school. I'm ready to hunt with Mr. Dixon."

"Oh, honey, he's not here today. His nephew was born last night after you went to bed. He went to go see him and his brother. But he'll be back in a fewdays. Come on in. I'll make you some breakfast." She knew he and Daryl usually ate while in the woods.

Carol mixed some milk from powder and poured it over some expired and slightly stale cheerios. Luke dug in greedily and she watched him with a slight smile on her face while she sipped her coffee. The boy was halfway through when he paused and said, "Mr. Dixon is my favorite dad."

She laughed. "What?"

"I have two dads in my cabin – Mr. Grimes and Mr. Zach, and two dads outside my cabin – Mr. Dixon and Mr. Rhee. But Mr. Dixon is my favorite."

"Well I'm sure he would be flattered to know that."

"You're not my favorite mom though. No offense."

"None taken."

"Mrs. Grimes is my favorite."

" _Mrs._ Grimes?" Carol never heard Michonne call herself that, but she supposed that's how it must appear to Luke. Michonne must have accepted the title from the boy, who shared Andre's room and sometimes played older brother to him.

"She's teaching me to do cool stuff with my wooden practice sword. I want to be on the cleaning crew and slash walkers like her one day. Well, and hunt like Mr. Dixon. I don't want to cook. Or sew. Or do laundry. I hate clearing the table, but I _have_ to help. No offense."

"Well, you and I can do things together _other_ than cooking and sewing. In fact, I don't have anything to do for a while. When the girls drag themselves out of bed, maybe we can all play a board game?"

"Risk," Luke said. Then his face crinkled as though he was trying to remember something. "Please. Ma'am."

Carol smiled. "Sure."

[*]

"So if Will Dixon was my daddy," said Roscoe as Daryl took off the chains from the tires because they'd reached the highway, "and Will Dixon was Merle's daddy…." Roscoe tapped the harmonica clipped to his belt, "but we had different mamas…" He took off his cowboy hat, turned it upside down, shook off the snow, and put it back on his head, "what's that make me and the prince?"

"Would ya shut up and help me with this?" Daryl dragged a chain across the asphalt and threw it in the bed of the truck with a clang.

Roscoe got off the second chain while Daryl took off the third and the fourth.

"Makes you cousins, I think," Daryl said later as he began driving again.

Roscoe turned the heater vent on himself. "What _kind_ of cousins, though?"

"Second cousins twice squared. Hell if I know!"

"No, that ain't right," Roscoe said. "It makes me his half uncle!"

"Yeah," Daryl agreed. "Makes more sense. We's cousins." Daryl waved a finger back and forth between himself and Roscoe. "You and me."

"Half first cousins," Roscoe said.

"Ain't no damn such thing as _half cousins_. My daddy Clevus was yer daddy Will's brother, so we's cousins. Period."

"So you admit Clevus was your daddy now?" Roscoe asked. "And Merle's your half-brother and I'm your first cousin?"

Daryl shrugged. "Don't make no damn difference no more. They's dead."

"It's damn confusing," Roscoe said, "all these forking family trees. Bastards and cheats. That's why I'm sticking with Rosita for life. Don't want have to map that shit out."

"Ain't like you's havin' kids anyhow," Daryl said. "Heard you got the snip snip." He winced a little and instinctively pinched his legs together.

Roscoe tilted his head toward him. "Rumour is y'all've been trying."

"Ain't been succeeding. Don't think she can."

"You can always take a handmaid," Roscoe said. "It's a new world and all."

Daryl turned his head slowly, glared at him, and looked back at the road.

Roscoe laughed. "Lighten up, cuz."

"Yeah? Maybe I'll take _Rosita_ as my handmaid. 'Cause _you_ cain't knock her up."

"Not funny," Roscoe said, "that is _not_ funny."

Daryl chuckled.

Roscoe sighed. "She's not even thirty. What if she _does_ decide she wants kids one day? Ain't nothin' I can do about it."

"Rosita ain't exactly nurturin'."

"She can be tender," Roscoe said. "And vulnerable. In _private_. _Sometimes_. You'd be surprised."

"Yeah, I _would_ be surprised."

Roscoe leaned back his seat a little. "I guess I oughtta reckon on this _not_ being permanent. I mean, it's fine now, but when I'm fifty and she's only thirty-whatever, shit…I can barely keep up with her _now_. One of these young soldiers is gonna supplant me eventually."

Daryl had no idea what to say to that, but, fortunately, they were nearing the army checkpoint at the border of the cabin fiefdom, so that was a distraction. He rolled down his window.

Abraham leaned in, "Headed to see your nephew?"

"Yep."

"How's Sasha?"

Daryl glanced at Roscoe and then looked back at Abraham. "A'ight."

Abraham stood straight and sighed. "It's just, I feel bad, about the way it ended. And I'm thinking maybe I made a mistake."

"Mhmhm," Daryl murmured. "Maybe."

"Think she'd take me back?"

"No," Roscoe said.

Daryl jerked his head toward the road. "Need to get goin'."

Abraham waved them on.

"Maybe Sasha will have me when Rosy dumps me," Roscoe said.

"She wouldn't have ya before."

"Yeah, but the pickin's are slim now," Roscoe reasoned.

"The pickin's was just you and her brother when ya found us!"

"Oh. Yeah. Valid point. Well, I reckon it'll be a good five years 'fore Rosy moves on. Hell, I might be too old to want to fuck then."

Daryl shook his head. "I ain't never gonna be too old to want to fuck."

They drove for another hour when they encountered an orange and white traffic barrier on the highway. Taped to it were two signs written in black marker. One read, "Road Closed by Order of the Army of the Kingdom of Merle." There was a skull and crossbones drawn below the words. "Proceed at your own risk." The next sign contained a detour map.

"Too many walkers that way, I guess," Daryl said and reversed the truck to take the side route.

"The army must have corralled them behind something up there," Roscoe agreed.

Daryl tore back down the highway toward a side road. In another two hours, they stopped to top off the gas tank with the cans. While they were at it, they checked out a couple of abandoned cars at the side of the road, but they'd been picked clean.

"Looks like they've all been pushed to the side of the highway," Roscoe said.

"Guess the Army cleared a path and scavenged everything while securin' the route," Daryl said. In the field at the side of the highway, lay a pile of burned walker bodies - at least thirty. "Maybe Merle's services are worth the tithe."

"No maybe about it," Roscoe said. "But when's he gonna decided to raise the taxes?"

"Guess we could always declare independence."

"Think he'd let us go without a fight?" Roscoe asked.

"Said he would, when we made the deal."

"Yeah, also said he wouldn't take the trouble not to redirect walkers our way when he's steering 'em away from other fiefdoms."

Daryl shrugged. "Ain't something' we got to worry 'bout now anyhow."

They hopped back in the truck and it was another hour - with another detour - before they reached the army checkpoint outside the Parthenon. No one there recognized Daryl, so he had to use the password. They radioed ahead to the Parthenon to verify, and were waved in.

"The palace is eight miles from here," the solider told him. "It's Nashville, so, it was a city. You'll probably encounter some walkers on the way. We haven't cleared them all yet. Stay alert. But we've cordoned off the worst paths. Stick to the route." He handed Daryl a paper map, and Daryl passed it to Roscoe.

Roscoe tipped his hat to the solider, and they roared on.

There was no snow in Nashville. The temperature was above forty degrees and Daryl turned off the heat to conserve gas. They weaved through city streets, and Roscoe pointed to a studio. "That's where I recorded my album that never came out. Think, if I'd of stayed here, I'd be living in the palace now instead of the cabins." He rubbed his chin. "Or dead. More likely I'd be dead." He glanced out the window at a few stragglers at the sides of the roads. "Merle cleaned the place up real nice."

Merle, grinning like a proud papa, was standing at the gates of the Parthenon when they got there. He ordered a soldier to swing them open and waved in the truck. Daryl parked and got out, along with Roscoe. He glanced out at the acres and acres of urban park land Merle had fenced in. There was a field laying fallow, ready for crops. There was a large pond, littered with small pockets of melting ice, where two men and two women stood fishing. Beyond the pond the Parthenon loomed, rising up with tall, solid pillars a the hill. A guard stood on the roof, at the triangular center, beside a statue. To the the left of the Parthenon was a field with seven single-wide trailer homes that looked like they had been transported there. Children played and ran between them.

"C'mon in," Merle told them. "I'll give y'all the grand tour and introduce you to the Prince."


	114. The Parthenon

Merle showed them the crop lands, which lay fallow for the winter, and then led them through his barn, which housed his two horses. He guided them around his corral of goats and sheep, beyond his chicken coop, past a greenhouse and through another fallow field to what he called "sanitation row." Daryl winced at the smell of the more than a dozen port-a-potties that were lined up all in a row at the back fence. There was a sign on one that read _King Merle's Throne Room_. "That's mine," he boasted. "Ain't no one else gets to shit in that one."

They had a working well that had been built by one of Merle's two "royal engineers" and three outdoor showers behind wooden stalls. They walked by Merle's solar bay. He had a few panels set up that he'd taken in tithe from them, and Daryl supposed the solar heaters and portable generators he'd claimed were somewhere inside.

A kickball rolled to a stop at Merle's feet and a little boy who was chasing it skidded to a stop. He looked up at Merle in awe. "Sorry, Your Highness. It got loose." Merle chuckled, picked up the ball, and tossed it back to him. The boy caught it and ran back toward the trailer homes, throwing a glance over his shoulder.

"My court's grown since we moved here," Merle said. "That's why we got the double-wides." Merle hiked ahead of Daryl and Roscoe toward the great stone steps leading up to the Parthenon. At the ledge halfway up an outdoor kitchen was set up. It was covered with a free-standing awning to keep the grills free from rain and snow, though there was ventilation in the tarp. A black man stood stoking the charcoal in one of the grills, and the crispy scent of smoke filled the area. A large sheep lay shorn and dead on a butcher's table.

"This is my royal butcher and chef," Merle told them. "Gus."

"Gustave," the man said, and waved to them. "I'd shake, but, I'm covered in ash and who knows what else."

"As you can see," Merle extended his hand to point at the sheep, "I've told him to slaughter the fatted lamb, since the prodigal son has returned." He nodded to Daryl.

"Think that was a fatted calf," Roscoe said. "And that ain't a lamb. It's a full-grown sheep."

"Well a lamb isn't about to feed fifty-six people, is it?" Merle asked.

"You got that many people here?" Daryl asked.

"'Tween the trailers and the palace, forty-seven people live here. But some of my off-duty soldiers will dine with us tonight. And y'all two." He led them under the awning and up the second set of stairs into the great building.

Within minutes, they were standing before a 42-foot statue of Athena, which shone with faux gold. "Damn." Daryl dragged his eyes slowly up the looming, glitzy monstrosity. Then he looked down again to the platform on which Athena stood. To her right were two large armchairs. "Y'all really sit in those things?"

"When we're conferrin' with our advisors," Merle told him. "This _is_ our throne room after all."

Much of the rest of the massive throne room, with its long marble floor, was covered by circular tables and chairs. The tables had been set with white tablecloths, cloth napkins, silverware, and glassware. Candles rested in the center of each table, though for now the sun fully lit the room. "This is the royal banquet hall, too," Merle told him. "We got communal meals like y'all. Guess they used to have wedding receptions in here or some shit. Found all the tables and chairs in storage."

Other sections of the museum had been curtained off to form bedrooms for various members of Merle's court. He showed off his "liquor closet," which was a supply closet the size of a classroom, that glistened wall to wall and floor to ceiling with shelves of liquid brown. Throughout the museum there were other pockets of storage. The Army of Merle had been busy clearing Nashville of anything salvageable, not to mention the tithes it collected from its fiefdoms.

Statues were everywhere in the Parthenon. Art lined the walls. Mustaches has been drawn on some of the young, Grecian men, in a thick, black Sharpie scrawl, and one woman, whose bare breast was spilling out of her toga, had been given a nipple ring. Merle followed Daryl's gaze. "Aw yeah," he said, "Esther got _pissed off_ at me for doin' that, but, I figured they needed a little something extra, you know?"

"Mhmhm," Daryl said.

Roscoe looked up at the high ceilings of the Parthenon. "I bet the acoustics are _fantastic_ in here."

"Take it you want to sing at the banquet tonight?" Merle asked.

"Well, I mean, if the _people_ want me to."

Merle chuckled.

Merle led them toward the basement next, where his own bedroom was located. "It's cooler down here in the summer," he explained. "And the heat doesn't get lost up in the rafters in the winter. It's safer if there's ever an attack, too, so the whole royal family lives down there – me and all of Esther's people."

As they were about to go down the stairs, a blonde man was climbing up. Merle gestured to the man, who paused and looked at Roscoe and Daryl curiously. "This here's Aaron. He's one of my eunuchs."

"Eunuchs?" Daryl asked.

Roscoe looked down below the man's belt. "He didn't _castrate_ you, did he?"

Aaron laughed. "No. I'm fully intact, I assure you. Eric and I are charged with the duty of guarding the royal family."

"Couple of faggots I picked up in Kentucky," Merle explained. "I figure they ain't gonna try any funny business with the women or girls, so I let them get close. At the start of all this, they lived in a real posh neighborhood in Virginia, green design or some shit, but it all went to hell, didn't it?"

"Well, it burned down," Aaron said solemnly. "Someone was setting fires in the woods, trying to drive out those creatures, and the fires got way out of control. They spread for miles and miles and ended up coming our way and burning down the whole neighborhood. Everyone who survived scattered. We had twelve people with us when we started out. By the time we made it to Kentucky, it was just me, Eric, Tobin, and Denise."

"Tobin's my construction foreman," Merle told Daryl and Roscoe. "Oversaw the building of that barn and keeps the fence in good repair. And Denise is our vet. The animal kind. Not the served-in-the-army kind. I don't think she's ever gone on a jog."

"She's good at her job," Aaron said.

"She's good at eating my food too," Merle said.

After they walked down the stairs, they passed an area lined with more storage shelves. A semi-plump, dirty blonde woman with glasses appeared to be checking something out on a clipboard. She held two bottles of pills in her left hand and wrote with her right. "And that's her," Merle said. "Denise."

The woman looked up and, still holding the pill bottles, pushed up the glasses on her nose.

"Getting something for my poor, sick horse?" Merle asked.

"No, the horse is doing fine now. The royal doctor asked me to check out a few things for him. I'm assisting him now."

"Long as you don't neglect my majestic steeds. You know how often I like to ride." Merle slapped her on the ass.

Denise jumped. "I swear to God, if you do that _again,_ I'll mention it to the Queen."

"Oh, come on, girl, I know you're desperate for male attention. You don't get enough. I ain't seen you with a man since you got here." He winked at her and walked on.

Denise just shook her head.

As Merle strolled on, he pointed out the rooms of his two sisters-in-law and their kids – some behind actual doors, others behind wooden barriers that were hinged together at the edges to form free-standing walls. When they got to the "royal chamber," he knocked twice and shouted it, "Coming in! You decent?"

"More decent than you!" Esther called back.

"This used to be an office," Merle told them as he threw the door open and led them inside. The old office furniture had been rearranged to allow for a queen-sized bed against one wall. Filing cabinets were being used as dressers, and a desk made a private dining table. It wasn't as ostentatious as Daryl had expected, and really, it wasn't nearly as nice or homey as his own cabin.

Queen Esther sat up against the headboard of the bed, her newborn infant resting against her chest. She looked a lot less exotically beautiful than she had when she'd first showed up with Merle at the cabins. She looked _exhausted_. And _normal_. No tiara, no sequined clothes – just a Vanderbilt sweatshirt. Her long hair was a disarrayed as it billowed loosely over her shoulders. A thin, light-brown-haired man stood putting folded clothes into one of the filing cabinet / dresser drawers. He rolled it shut with a clang. "You just ring if you need me, Esther, darling," he said.

"Thank you, Eric."

The man nodded to Daryl and Roscoe as he flounced out of the bedroom.

"That's my other eunuch," Merle said.

"Assumed," Daryl replied.

"How many times have I told you to stop calling them that?" Esther asked her husband.

"Hey, at least I stopped callin' 'em faggots like you asked."

"I don't think you have," she said. She turned her eyes from Merle. "Hello, Daryl," she said, her voice slightly less husky than Daryl had remembered it. "And hello, Roscoe."

"Ma'am," Roscoe said and tipped his hat.

"Your Highness," Merle corrected him.

"Bad Boy, let's not bother with formalities," Esther said. "They're family, aren't they?"

Merle sauntered over, bent down, and kissed her forehead. Then he took the sleeping infant from her. It looked even more tiny cradled in the crook of Merle's massive arm. "Ain't he the best-looking baby boy you ever seen?"

"Mhmhm," Daryl agreed, because you couldn't disagree with something like that. Daryl supposed if he'd been gifted with a baby boy, he'd have felt the same way. But that was never going to happen. A heavy certainty sat in his gut, and his throat felt dry when he peered down at the tiny babe. The boy's eyes were loosely closed, and his chest rose and fell beneath his thick, fuzzy blue one-piece. He was almost as bald as Merle, except for a thin fur at the top of his head, but his skin was the color of a Georgia pecan. "Touch 'em?"

"Go on," Merle urged him. "He's your blood, too."

Daryl ran a finger down the little baby's cheek. The flesh was soft and surprisingly warm, given how cool it was down here, with only a single solar heater warming the basement. But he had been cuddling with his mama. Daryl swallowed and tried to force down the ugly pang of jealousy.

"Say hi to your Uncle Daryl," Merle commanded the prince. The baby's eyelids twitched, almost opened, but then stilled in a closed position.

"Aww, let 'em sleep," Daryl told him.

Roscoe eased in to admire the little tot and said, "Howdy, Caleb."

After they'd done all their required _oohing and ahhing_ over the baby, they returned him to his mama and left Esther in peace.

"You change a lot of diapers?" Roscoe asked as they walked back up to the first floor of the Parthenon.

"Hell no, I don't change diapers," Merle said. "Neither does Esther. That's what Eric's for." He showed him back to the trailers and into one of them, which he called "the guest house."

[*]

Carol stopped by the Town Hall to check the radio messages. Maggie was on duty at the radio desk. "Where's Gi?" Carol asked.

"Glenn's got her. I can't control her if I have to get on the radio. She's into everything. She's _climbing_ on top of things already! Before walking! Glenn thinks she's a genius." She ripped a piece of paper out her notebook. "This message came from Daryl through the relay."

Carol took the sheet and read Maggie's pretty cursive: "Arrived safe. Baby seems like a normal baby. Be home by nightfall tomorrow."

"He's a fount of information, isn't he?" Maggie asked.

Carol chuckled, balled up the paper, and tossed it in the trash. "Any other interesting news?"

"Just an I love you from General Boone to Karen and his kids, and a message that things are worse of a mess at Bowling Green than he thought. He's not sure when he'll establish a government and be back. So much for being retired."

[*]

The statue of Athena sparkled in the light of a dozen wall lanterns and even more candles burning beneath glass covers on the centers of the circular tables. Two solar heaters rested at either end of the banquet hall, but it was still cool in the stone fortress. Daryl was glad he'd worn a thick, long-sleeve flannel shirt to dinner.

The food was good, but not as good as Carol's. Esther sat at the head table with Daryl, Roscoe, and Merle. She'd spruced herself up considerably by doing her hair and makeup and slipping into a stretchy, red, long-sleeve dress, but she still looked tired around the eyes. She wore the baby in a blue sling across her chest, and he slept through dinner.

"He ever wake up?" Daryl asked. He'd come all this way, and he sort of wanted to _see_ his nephew awake before he left.

"He's a good sleeper," Merle insisted. "Best sleeper ever born."

"The doctor actually has me splash cold water on his feet to wake him up every few hours to feed him," Esther said. "And then he often falls asleep nursing. But he's smaller than usual, and Dr. Hamilton says he'll be more lively in a few weeks, when he's put on some weight."

"Tell the doc to check his blood type," Daryl told her. "Got a scientist on our Council. Thinks AB negative is immune."

Roscoe joined Merle's "royal musicians," a flutist and a violinist, for a while, and for the sake of the new baby, he sang a soulful version of Bob Dylan's "Forever Young." After Roscoe rejoined the table, Caleb Merle, Jr. stirred from his sleep and grew fussy. It was the first noise Daryl had heard out of him all day. Esther freed him from her sling and Daryl saw, now that his eyes were open, that they were mostly a murky blue, with flecks of yellow and brown around the pupils. "I'm going to feed him downstairs," Esther said, "because I think I want to go to sleep when he does." She stood and kissed Merle's bald head before walking off.

Merle watched her go. "Look at that ass," he said. "Got a little meatier while she was pregnant. Plenty of cushion for the pushin' now, if you know what I mean."

Daryl ignored his brother's comment and scanned the paintings on the wall. People used to pay money to see art like this. Now, there was a layer of dust on the edge of the frames.

A woman in a tight, low-cut shirt brought the three men a tray full of chocolate pudding in small glass bowls and ceramic cups of coffee, which she set down on the table. Merle took a good look at her breasts as she bent over and then watched her ass as she walked away with the empty tray at her side.

"It's like you're running a Hooters in here," Roscoe said.

"Well, it's not like these women have many talents," Merle said. "So I got to give 'em _some_ job in the court." He jerked his thumb toward the woman who had just served them. "That one's Carolyn. She once posed for _Playboy_ in some article about sexy accountants."

Overhearing him while gathering dirty dishes from another table, Carolyn turned back. "It was about lawyers shedding their briefs. I was in law school at the time."

"Whatever," Merle replied. "Accountants. Lawyers. All equally pointless in this world."

Daryl lifted his coffee and sipped. He jerked his head back in surprise when the taste hit his tongue.

" _Irish_ coffee," Merle said. "I got so much whiskey and bourbon. I don't mind lettin' everyone have a nip in the evening."

Daryl, knowing what it was this time, sipped it again, licked his lips, and said, "Pretty damn good." He tried the pudding next, which tasted a bit powdery, like it had been made from a boxed mix with an insufficient amount of liquid, but it was still sweet and he still licked his spoon clean when he was done.

When a different royal servant came to pick up Merle's bowl, he watched her walk away. "I'm glad Esther gave me an heir, I really am," he said as he finally turned his attention back to Daryl and Roscoe, "but this shit about six weeks with no sex is ridiculous." He scooped up his coffee cup by the handle. "And that damn woman insists I can't fuck _any_ of the royal servants while I'm waiting for her to get back in the saddle."

"Six weeks?" Daryl asked.

"Yeah. After they pop out a baby, they're out of commission for six weeks," Merle told him. "Twelve if they got to get cut open." He ran a finger down his stomach and made a slitting sound.

Daryl sipped his coffee and thought about six to twelve weeks with no sex. He thought about Carol being cut open, too. Dr. S had said women were at a higher risk of needing a C-section when they were older. Avoiding that possibility, along with a temporary sex famine, was one advantage of not being able to knock Carol up. One of many, really. Esther sure had looked tired. And this was a tough world in which to raise a baby. And he _did_ have Sophia and Mika to love and raise already, and Luke to mentor, and baby Gi to babysit. He had so many people to love, really, more than he knew he ever _could_ love. He had a good life, and he couldn't wait to get home to it.

Merle leaned back in his chair. "She's damn high maintenance." He nodded to Daryl. "Carol let you fuck around without pitchin' a fit?"

"Don't wanna fuck around."

"I don't get what the big deal about it is." Merle eyed another passing servant woman who was bringing desserts to one of the last tables in the banquet hall to be served, "but Esther says she'll leave me and move to the Village fiefdom if I do." He finished off his coffee and set the empty cup on the table. "I can _look_ , but I can't _touch_. I suppose it's for the best, though. They're all married, the servants, and their husbands wouldn't like it. Good soldiers. Don't want to lose them."

"Think ya mean ya don't want to lose Esther," Daryl said.

"Well, damn if I don't love that ornery bitch," Merle admitted.


	115. A Whirlwind of Change

In the morning, Merle asked if Daryl wanted to go riding. "Hell yeah!" he said. Daryl didn't get to use his motorcycle much. But as it turned out, Merle meant _horses_ , not bikes. And as it also turned out, Merle had learned to ride a horse pretty damn well. Daryl, however, had not, and when he got that brown mare going too fast and he couldn't get it to slow it down, Merle had to overtake them on his black stallion and grab the reins, and then of course Merle laughed at Daryl on and off for the next hour after they got the horses back to the stable.

They talked politics for a bit – future plans and Kingdom governance, and Merle said, "General Boone says the Bowling Green fiefdom is a complete mess and no one wants to step up to take the responsibility to lead it. He also says he thinks a three-state Kingdom is too hard to defend, and the trade routes are too long."

"What do you think?"

"I think he's right. I'm gonna tell those Bowling Green folk they can either pack up their supplies and fold into the other fiefdoms in Georgia and Tennessee, or they can stay there and fend for themselves. But I'm pulling my army out of Kentucky in three weeks. I need people to farm and build here. So I'll offer take in most of 'em, in exchange for most ofthe supplies at the amusement park. I can always make more rooms in the Parthenon, drag over more trailer homes and port-a-potties. Dig another well. Build more showers."

"That's a lot of people," Daryl said.

"Well, the four men whose wives got killed will go in the army. Live in the barracks. General Wilson and the Mayor said the Village can take in two large families. Think y'all can take in one? Eight people."

"'S a big family!"

"A man and wife with three kids and her widowed sister with two kids."

"Have to run it by the Council. We got one extra cabin we ain't usin' yet."

"You got more than one," Merle told him.

"Only one that's fenced in. Rest of them cabins is another mile down the road. That's a lot more fence just to get to 'em. But the one that's empty - it's got three bedrooms. Could turn the garage into a bedroom, too. Ain't saying' yes for sure though."

Merle nodded. "Well, send word when y'all decide. Need to know within the week. You'll get supplies from the amusement park to come with 'em."

Daryl spent a little more time with his brother and nephew, and then he and Roscoe left after lunch. "Strange place to live," Roscoe observed when the Parthenon disappeared from the rear view mirror.

"Yeah,"Daryl agreed. "Like our neighborhood hell of a lot better." They fell silent. Daryl watched the city of Nashville recede as his thoughts turned to home.

[*]

Carol snuggled back closer against Daryl, her body curving naturally into the warm heat of his. The stream would thaw soon, and they'd open the windows when spring came. By summer, they'd be sleeping a foot of part under a thin sheet to stay cool. She'd missed this time of nightly closeness, huddling for warmth in the soft strength of his embrace.

"He was so damn small," Daryl said. "Thought he'd be huge, I mean, look at Merle. Esther ain't no string bean neither."

Carol quietly traced patterns on his bare arm, from his wrist up to his elbow and back down again, gliding her fingers over the sinews that rippled beneath his flesh. "Are you jealous?" she asked quietly.

"Yes and no," he answered. "Listen, Carol, I been thinkin'. We got a great life here, me and you. Together. Don't we?"

"We do," she agreed.

"It's a'ight with me if it never happens. I'm sorry I pushed ya into wantin' a baby."

"You didn't push me into wanting it," she told him. "You just pushed me into _admitting_ I wanted it. We both wanted it. No sense pretending we didn't. But...you know...this is a disappointment we can weather together. For better or for worse, right?"

"Yeah." He kissed her cheek and settled his chin atop her head.

"It's good to have you home," she said.

"''S good to _have_ a home," he replied. "Always thought a home like this was just a dream."

Carol closed her eyes and, for the first time in weeks, felt truly at peace.

[*]

In early March, water trickled down the mountain as the last remnants of the final snowfall melted. Headed by Rick, the farming team prepared a second field for crops, and Austin planted the fruit trees. The stream was diverted to provide irrigation to the cropland through shallow tunnels that ran beneath the perimeter fence. A construction crew started building additional outhouses. Meanwhile, Carol and her crew prepared the closed-up cabin to receive the large family from the Bowling Greene fiefdom. The last window creaked as she rolled it up to let in the fresh air. Michonne, Noah, and Beth were outside beating out the dust from the area rugs, and Sophia and Patrick were cleaning up the kitchen.

Carol heard the garage door clang open and went to see what furniture Roscoe, T-Dog, Daryl, and Luke were hauling in from the lower cabins. When she passed through the kitchen, Sophia and Patrick were standing close together. Patrick's hand was on Sophia's shoulder, and their mouths were very close. They leapt away from each other, and Patrick immediately grasped the mop and began running it across the floor. Carol smiled and carried on through the kitchen door into the garage.

Luke stood toward the rear of the garage, waving his hand back like a little traffic controller as he guided Daryl and T-Dog. The men struggled with a pair of heavy bunk beds. Luke put his hand forward like a stop sign, and they dropped the beds with a clunk on the floor. "Against that wall," Luke ordered, and T-Dog and Daryl pushed the beds flush against the wall that joined the house.

"I take it you've decided this is going to be a kids' room?" Carol asked as Daryl came to stand beside her. The garage had already been cleared of all junk except shelving.

"Figure we'd put the two brothers and their boy cousin in here," he replied. "General Boone says they's eleven to fourteen. Plenty old. Don't need to be near their folks inside."

"Fourteen, huh?" Carol bumped Daryl's shoulder and teased, "Another boy for you to worry about chasing Sophia."

Daryl shrugged. "He's gotta get past her boyfriend first. Might force Patrick to grow a backbone."

Carol laughed.

Noah and Beth, each holding one end of an area rug, came into the garage and plopped it in the center of the oil-stained cement floor. Noah was still limping slightly from his gunshot wound.

"There," Beth said. "A homey touch." Noah snorted and they both left.

T-Dog glanced at them as they vanished through the open garage and shook his head. "I wouldn't like my woman flirting with another man like they've been doing all day," he said.

"I'd move this shelf to the center of the back wall," said Carol, tapping the metal edge before she went back inside to dust. She was running a cloth over a bookcase later when Daryl startled her by wrapping his arms around her from behind and kissing her neck.

She tensed instinctively at the unexpected embrace, and her toes pushed up against the floor, but her muscles relaxed as soon as she heard the deep rumble of his laugh. She turned in his arms and kissed him. "You're sneaky."

"'S how I catch my prey." He kissed her back and pushed her against the bookcase. Their tongues tangled for a moment before he let her go and stepped away. He looked around the living room. "They drew the best straw."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"This family. That they get to live with us. What we got goin' here, it's pretty damn good. Merle's just gonna have most of 'em in trailer homes. They'll be showerin' outside, holdin' chains. And the ones goin' to the Village…it's a'ight, but it ain't near as nice as this. And the RV fiefdom…dunno. Never been there. But they's plumb crazy from what I hear."

"Did Merle settle any of the Bowling Green refugees there?"

"Just two elderly men. Didn't want to send no women to live in a sex cult, 'specially after all they went through." He looked around the cabin again and chuckled. "I'm in the rich neighborhood now."

She smiled. "So you weren't that impressed with the Parthenon?"

He shook his head. "Big ass thing. Lots of art and statues and shit. But it ain't homey." He put an arm around her waist and jerked her close. "I like homey."

They kissed until they heard a throat clear and turned to see Patrick. "Mrs. Dixon, ma'am," he said. "We've finished the kitchen. Is there anything else you'd like us to do?"

[*]

General Boone arrived the next day with the Bowling Greene refugee family in tow, as well as a truck full of junk food, batteries, fuel stabilizer, gasoline, and clothes from the amusement park.

"I'm retired for good now," he assured Karen at the communal dinner that night.

"I'll believe it when a year has passed," she answered skeptically.

"The Kingdom has contracted, so there's less area to patrol. The soldiers that used to patrol Bowling Greene have been reassigned. We've got seven more men under General Ford now. I doubt they'll be needing me."

Carol, overhearing the conversation, asked, " _General_ Ford?"

"Abraham was promoted again," General Boone told her.

"Well, good for him," Sasha muttered as she stabbed her venison with her fork.

"There will be a new solider here every week," Boone told Sasha. The Council had agreed to let six homeless soldiers furlough in the cabin fiefdom on a rotating schedule. "Who knows. Romance may brew."

[*]

It took two months for the new Bowling Greene family to really settle into the order of the fiefdom. The children were used to roaming free without schooling, rules, or direction. Even the adults were unaccustomed to working, and they were all unfamiliar with rationing. At one point, the fourteen-year-old boy raided the extended pantry in the garage of Glenn and Maggie's cabin. Omar was home on furlough that week, in Ivy's bedroom, and he heard the noise. He snatched the boy up by his shirt collar and brought him before the Council the next morning, which admonished him and gave him the job of cleaning the outhouses.

Though they didn't have a working sewage treatment plant, they did now have power in the cabins. It turned out that the widow from the Bowling Greene fiefdom, a woman named Joanne, had been a master electrician in the old world. With Roscoe and Eugene, and after a final supply run back to Solis, she managed to get the cabins wired for solar power. The overhead fans could now be switched on to cool the rooms, and they could plug things directly into the outlets. Eugene fell in love with the widow, and pestered her with his flirtations, but she kept him at arms' length and chose to eat at Stephen's table during the communal meals. Rumors flew that Joanne and Stephen would one day be a couple.

By May, the chicken coop had been filled with baby chicks. Croplands and gardens were flourishing. They harvested and began the summer planting. In accordance with the Constitution, annual elections were held, and the Council turned over once again. Carol, Rick, Glenn, Janet, and General Boone held onto their seats. Roscoe was surprised and pleased to find himself elected. Haley, got the "young folks' vote" (as Daryl called it) this time around. Austin, who's input on the future orchard was much desired, assumed a seat. And the last spot was filled by T-Dog, who's affability had made him popular with everyone.

[*]

The summer was a whirlwind of change. The walkers grew sparse in the woods. The cleaning team was reduced to two people, because there were never more than four creatures caught up on the pikes of the fence in the morning.

Janice, having successfully gone three months straight without a drink, immigrated to the cabin fiefdom and moved into Greg's bedroom with him. She renounced her trade as a prostitute and became a teacher at the school.

On a supply expedition, Zach and Daryl found two half wild horses and, with much effort, wrangled them home, where Austin broke them. They were housed in newly built stables.

The fruit trees began to sprout and the crops lands flourished while Zach and Beth's marriage withered and died. They divorced before either could cheat on the other, sadly but not bitterly, and they petitioned the Council for room reassignments.

Michonne and Rick took over the master bedroom from them, Michonne saying, coyly, "We might need the extra space in a year or two." Zach moved into Rick and Michonne's old bedroom, and Beth took up residence in the garage bedroom of Sasha's cabin. To no one's surprise, Beth was soon dating Noah.

While many expected Zach would quickly begin competing with Mike for Haley's attention, instead he quietly and respectfully pursued a relationship with Samantha Boone. He also made room in his heart for her son Pioneer. "Hard to believe he's the same frat boy I picked up at the visitor's center," Daryl told Carol.

The King sent word that the Royal Prince was "thriving," and that he could now roll over and sit up without support. On trading trips to the Parthenon, Tara got to know Denise, and in August she immigrated there to live with her and became a royal guard.

About the only thing that _didn't_ change that summer was Carol's barren womb, but the couple's attitude toward it _did_ change. They were happy with their little nuclear family, and with their vast extended one, too - a village full of children and peers – a family forged by love instead of blood.

[*]

The May after Sophia turned sixteen, the apple trees bore its first blooms, and Michonne bore a baby girl. Zach and Samantha married one another, and Beth moved in with Noah.

In June, King Merle's refinery finally started producing gas and oil, and they could travel by truck again, after months of sticking mostly to their own fiefdoms after the fuel spoiled. Because the army had not been patrolling by tank and Humvee but only by foot, horse, and bicycle, hungry herds of walkers had migrated into parts of the Kingdom. When the gasoline was available, General Boone was called up from the reserves to lead one of the several extermination forces.

By mid-July, the walker population was under control. While exterminating the active, migrating herds, the army also came across hundreds upon hundreds of walkers that could barely move because they had gone so long without food. Though the walker population was everywhere declining, the Kingdom's inhabitants still sought a cure for the disease. Eugene and Stephen were asked to join a team of "royal researchers" who would work together to study the possibility of somehow using AB antigens to combat the disease.

In August, the RV fiefdom seceded from the Kingdom so it would no longer have to pay a tithe. The cabin fiefdom briefly debated secession, but chose to remain for the protection the Kingdom's army offered, especially in securing trade routes, scouting, and deterring bandits. Besides, they'd all come to feel a part of something larger than their own community. Janice had come to them from the Village, after all, and Sasha had left them for it and for a man there. Tara had settled at the Parthenon with Denise. They had friends all throughout the Kingdom - and family, of course. Daryl and Carol visited Merle and their nephew on occasion.

In September, General Ford and his men discovered a group of eight people surviving on a houseboat along the Tennessee river. They lived off of fish and frogs and docked and went looting from time to time, but it was an unsettled life that had resulted in many losses, and they were happy to join the cabin fiefdom. Among them were several expert fishermen, who made good use of the stream and pond, and a sanitation specialist who promised that, within a year, he could have the septic system running on the mountain, and they would all be able to use their toilets again. With the help of their newest inhabitants, the cabin fiefdom extended its perimeter fence three miles and swallowed the last of the cabins.

In October, the cabin fiefdom lost its first life in a long time. Roy died not of walkers, war, or want - but peacefully, in his sleep, of a heart attack. The camp rallied around his widow Janet and their grandchildren. Janet donated Roy's body to research, because he'd been immune to the disease.

Christmas came and went, and snow settled lightly on the mountain. In February, two months after Sophia turned seventeen, Daryl's worst nightmare unwound. He lost his little girl.


	116. Walking in the Light

"Hell is Soph thinkin'!" Daryl yelled as he paced before the fireplace. "She's barely seventeen!"

"I know," Carol told him calmly. "Now will you please sit down so we can discuss this rationally?"

"Hell is there to discuss?" His voice grew louder. "No. Hell no! She's too young."

Carol patted the sofa cushion. Daryl glared at the empty spot, but he plopped himself down next to her. " _Hell_ is she thinkin'?" he muttered.

"If we don't give her permission, she'll just petition the Council for emancipation. Maybe it's better she do it with our blessing."

"I'm gonna go over right now and knock some sense into Patrick," he muttered.

"Daryl…maybe it's for the best they _do_ get married. Even before the Collapse, it was legal to get married in Georgia at seventeen with parental permission, and we're living in a much different world now. These kids grow up very quickly. They _have_ to."

Daryl rocked back and forth. He dug the toes of his boots against the floor and then threw himself back against the sofa. "Hell they gonna live? Can't move in here with only two bedrooms and Mika in that one!" He threw his hand back toward the bedroom. Mika was at the moment at the Big Cabin, playing board games with Luke.

"She'll move into Patrick's cabin, of course," Carol told him. "He has his own room."

Daryl rubbed his face. "My parents got married when my mama was seventeen. That was a shit marriage! They hated each other."

"Yeah, well, Sophia and Patrick don't hate each other. Not by a long shot. And they've gotten to know each other _very_ well. It's not like he picked her up in a bar last night. They've been dating since she was _thirteen_. This isn't exactly a lark, Pookie."

"He just wants to marry her so's he can have sex with her."

Carol blinked at him. "I don't even know how to respond to that without telling you something you seriously don't want to hear."

"Cain't believe you're okay with this!"

"I'm _not_ okay with it. I'm worried for her just like you are. I'm worried she's too young to make that kind of commitment. But I'm even _less_ okay with the alternative, which is that we refuse to give her permission and she petitions the Council for emancipation, and then we have this wedge between her and us."

Daryl sighed heavily. "Don't want to lose 'er."

"You aren't going to _lose_ her," Carol assured him. "You're going to _give_ her away. And to a very good young man."

"Patrick treats her right," he admitted. "Just wish he could _hunt_."

"Sophia can hunt. Patrick can cook and clean." Carol eased a little closer to Daryl on the couch and put a hand on his knee. "And change the baby's diapers."

"Baby?" Daryl asked. His voice rose. "He knock her up?" He stood up abruptly. "I swear to God, I'm gonna – "

Carol grabbed his hand and tugged him back down. "Sophia is _not_ pregnant, sweetheart. But one day…they probably _will_ have children. She says they both want them."

"Oh," he said, looking a little embarrassed by his outburst. Then, in a different tone of voice, as if he was having a realization, " _Oh_." He grinned. "A baby? We could …hell, Carol, we could have a grandbaby one day!"

Carol laughed. "Yes, Pookie, we could." She kissed the edge of his smiling mouth and felt her own smile growing.

 ** _[ Four Years Later… ]_**

Daryl sat on his son-in-law's couch cradling his grandson in one arm and toying with his tiny, two-month-old fingers. The little fingers attempted, but failed, to grasp Daryl's pinky. "Gonna be a bow hunter," Daryl said.

"Maybe," Carol agreed. She sat beside Daryl with her arm stretched over his shoulders and looked down at their perfect little grandson.

"Hey, baby boy," Daryl whispered. "I'm yer granddaddy." The baby cooed. Daryl looked at Carol, excitement twinkling in his eyes. "Think he's talkin' to me."

"Maybe," Carol agreed with a smile. She felt a strong surge of affection for her husband well up inside of her. Before it could quite overtake her, Patrick came out of the kitchen, where he'd been warming up a bottle of breast milk in a pot on the wood stove. Sophia was taking a much-needed nap.

Patrick squirted some of the milk on his wrist to check the temperature and then handed the bottle to Daryl, who teased the baby's lips with it until he opened wide and began to suck. "You like that baby boy?" Daryl cooed. "You like that Patrick Daryl?" They'd named the boy Patrick Daryl, but they were planning to call him P.D. Sophia claimed those were great initials for a writer, and one day he'd write the great post-apocalyptic novel.

"You give him the vaccine yet?" Carol asked.

Patrick shook his head. "Dr. S says not until he's six months. But it's not like he'll go outside the gates in his first year anyway." Even if he did, he'd be unlikely to encounter many walkers. Sometimes Daryl would hunt all day and not come across a single one. Some survived on carrion - they were still out there - but they were fewer and farther between.

There was a knock on the door, and Patrick went to answer it. Roscoe came in, holding his guitar by its neck. He sat down in an armchair by the coffee table.

"How's your wife?" Patrick asked Roscoe as he eased into the other armchair.

"Rosy's doin' great," Roscoe replied. He rested his guitar on his knee. "I _finally_ finished writing that song for the baby. Thought maybe I could play it for him?"

"Sure. He'd love to hear it," Patrick said.

"Not sure the baby's gonna understand it," Daryl observed.

Carol hid a laugh against Daryl's shoulder and saw him smile. She reached out and lay a hand gently on her grandson's head, where a soft, whispy fur of brown hair rested. The baby's eyes, which had been looking down at the nipple of the bottle, rolled back toward her. She knew the color wouldn't be settled for a while, but for now, they were a light brown. She wondered if they'd become like her own father's eyes – that beautiful hazel that had skipped her and Sophia both. She'd thought becoming a grandmother would make her feel old, but it didn't. It made her feel young with hope.

Roscoe began to strum. His familiar voice, with its soft country twang, filled the cabin as he sang:

 _We lived in a dark and ugly time,  
When every poem seemed to lose its rhyme.  
This world you'll one day grow up in,  
Is nothing like the world that's been,  
But I hope you'll never cease to climb._

 _You were born on a cold and windy night,  
But the stars were still shining bold and bright.  
This world you'll one day walk on through  
Is nothing like the world we knew,  
But I hope you'll be walking in the light…._

Hearing the song, Sophia emerged from her bedroom, walked behind the couch, and patted Daryl on his head while smiling down at her baby. Her robe pulled tight, she settled onto her husband's lap in the armchair. Patrick wrapped his arms around her. "Where's Mika?" she asked when Roscoe had finished singing.

"Runnin' 'round with Luke somewheres," Daryl said. "And the other teenagers."

"You know she doesn't see Luke as a _brother_ , right?" Sophia asked him.

"Yeah," Daryl answered. "Got my eye on it. Luke ain't interested though. He been chasin' Austin's little girl."

"She's not so little anymore," Sophia said.

Daryl pulled the bottle from the baby's lips and set it on the coffee table. He held his grandson upright and began to rub his little back, moving his strong hand gently up and down over the soft fabric of the child's onesie as the baby settled its chin against his shoulder. He let out a little burp.

"Can you sing your song again, Uncle Roscoe?" Sophia asked. "I missed the first part."

"Happy to oblige." Roscoe resumed strumming.

Carol let Roscoe's voice wash over her as she kissed her grandson's head and then her husband's cheek. The sun set slowly between the greening trees, casting soft rays of color through the window and painting joyful patterns on the faces that she loved.

 **THE END**


End file.
